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Decius comments on Three more ways identity can be a curse - Less Wrong
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I don't really think this is possible to do.
Of course, the example I gave assumes that Alice has the capability of self-modifying in the area of what she's passionate about, and not in the area of how much money she needs to be happy, whereas in reality for many people it may be the other way around.
Okay, but depression is a condition that often causes laziness. I'm not sure exactly what part of the post you're disagreeing with - if it's the quoted text, then that was written by probably one of the world's biggest contributors to the study of depression, so I don't think you should try to correct him unless you have strong credentials.
I was specifically objecting to where you generalized depression and low self-esteem as being similar or having similar effects. I suspected a four-term syllogism error when you summarized the expert opinion.
I have different objections to the conclusions of the people who study depression, and I don't recognize their contributions as constituting an authority that can be appealed to. That's mostly because they have a track record of being unable to predict the effects of an intervention.
I suspect a large part of that is because they also frequently make the mistake of implicitly taking the same half-reductionist position you take in this comment.
That's poor predictive ability regarding the result of an outcome.
The chemistry-as-cause belief is because the mechanism used to identify potential interventions is based on chemistry that is intended to make the brains harder to distinguish in destructive testing. Chemistry causing emotions and altering mental states is well documented and uncontroversial; depression being a chemical state with specific visible symptoms is exactly as strange as drunkenness being such a state.
The mistake I'm addressing, what I called "half-reductionist" in the parent, is the belief (or alief) that mental processes split into two types:
1) those that are reducible to physical/chemical processes and thus can only be analyzed or affected by chemicals,
2) those that aren't reducible and thus are analyzed or affected by psychology.
My point is that this distinction doesn't correspond to anything in reality.
How about 1) those that have been largely reduced to physical/chemical processes and thus can be analyzed or affected directly
2) those that have not yet been reduced and thus are handled differently.
First, why is this distinction relevant to the comment you made in the ancestor?
Second, the brain is a complicated system. Naively playing with the inner workings of a complicated system tends to result in all kinds of unintended consequences. In other words, just because we have some idea what chemical state corresponds to depression, doesn't mean using chemicals is the best way to treat it.
It does mean that you shouldn't conflate atypical serotonin levels with temporary loneliness after one's cat died by calling both of those 'depression'.
Do you have research that the temporary loneliness after one's cat died does not in fact involve atypical serotonin levels?
Also why is this relevant. Your statement implied that the similarity cluster that includes laziness, lack of motivation, and akrasia does not include depression. Even if laziness say turns out to involve a different hormone, or some other chemical and/or physical process, I fail to see why that's an argument against including depression in the same similarity cluster.
Oh, that argument is based entirely on the lack of similarity of those characteristics and their effects.