pjeby comments on Pain and gain motivation - Less Wrong

45 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 07 April 2010 06:48PM

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Comment author: pjeby 08 April 2010 03:59:57PM 3 points [-]

Emotional-brain answers don't "point to" things. They just are what they are. Ask what, specifically, you're "missing out" on, as the "pointing to" bit is just a logical-brain speculation.

At the moment, the evidence still supports a most-parsimonious hypothesis of dopamine addiction as an avoidance strategy for getting away from something else... that you haven't actually asked yourself about. What is it that you want (or think you want) to be doing instead of being internet addicted? That's the thing you should be asking questions about.

90% of the time, our initial ideas about what problem we need to solve are overly-narrow, because the unconscious mind almost always hands the conscious mind a problem specification that doesn't involve questioning any of your basic assumptions. ;-)