@Man in Black I didn't specify they did it intentionally. Nobody ever accidentally drank poison? (Maybe I shouldn't have used bleach as the example).
Re: "cockamamie definition" If I'm reading you correctly (correct me please if I am) part of your argument is that addiction ought to be defined, for treatment purposes, as a disease when that is not necessarily the case?
There's such a thing as involuntary commitment, especially if a person is ruled to be a threat to others or to refuse treatment that's in their own best interest. Of course that relies on a third party to neutrally arbitrate to a person what's in their own best interest.
I agree with your comparisons between homosexuality and addiction (though I disagree that wanting to cure/brainwash somebody out of homosexuality makes them your "willing slave") and hopefully you can see where I'm coming from when I say that I see it as problematic that law/society can (more or less arbitrarily) dictate that some partially genetic/partially behavioral "problems" are "illnesses" that require "treatment" and others are socially acceptable.
It's in the eye of the beholder. In our culture we (rightly, I think) do not regard homosexuality as a dangerous aberrant addiction that needs to be cured but the same is not true of certain other lifestyle choices and I think that's something that can be fruitfully questioned and examined. As happens in this thread ;)
@Shouting Off Mountain - devil's advocate: How is that any different from offering 120 million to somebody to cure your daughter of a congenital illness? Especially if it's one with no known cure?Ok, I know this is going to become another argument eventually, but here's my attempt. Probably going to regret it.
While homosexuality does have a number of genetic factors that influence it's appearance, it is fundamentally a trait of personality. It does not stem PURELY from genetic factors.
To remove it is a violation of freedom of will, since you are trying to fundamentally change their personality, and not just their body.
Now, for the addiction problem it's more complicated. But I still hold that it is not a purely genetic thing. It depends just as much on environment, society, and other factors so as to be a part of personality. Anything that destroys that is an attack on freedom of will. Anything that changes that doesnt "cure" the person, it simply creates a new, different person instantaneously.
Another question to ask would be:
If you new somebody could kidnap you & reprogram you to be their willing slave, would you want that (before the reprogramming, because after, you wouldn't care). I dont want that possibility to even exist.
I really hope we can all stay civil in this discussion, because I know it has SOOO much potential as flame bait. I will gladly listen to your responses.
Look, back when millions of people actually were kidnapped and enslaved, reprogramming them be so willingly (well, except by beating them into submission) wasn't an issue. Like, at all, and that's how society at large functioned. I hope I don't sound uncivil either, but I really think you're just over reacting to the idea of medical innovation.
Misleading a person or taking advantage of known cognitive biases and missteps =/= reprogramming their brain like a robot. Give me a break.
But it is still one's informed choice, that they can easily decide against at any point of the (generally long) process.
There is no such thing as contra-causal free will. We do what our brains decide, and unfortunately most of their programming takes place by happenstance instead of intent.
What defines you, your personality, your memories, your ways of being (what makes you a person) can be removed wiht almost negligible effort (despite the probable complexity of such surgery). Thus personhood goes from a bastion of what you are (hard to change) to something that can merely have parts of it copy-pasted around.
That's what happens. Look at the case of the UT sniper, or any number of similar cases; do stuff to the brain and the output instantly gets scrambled; you get a new person.
Unfortunately, I'm a scientist not a philosopher, so my explanation is probably not the best.
May I ask what sort? I'm a hydrogeologist, but have an interest in biology. If you're a neuroscientist, I'll likely bow to your superior immersion, but if an engineer or computer scientist -- not so much.
Plus I think the potential for abuse of such technology is simply immesurable.
So is the potential for abuse from the atomic bomb, but the cat's out of the bag. It's better to let science deal with learning how things work, and let the people and the courts decide what constitutes "abuse."
The difference between homosexuality and drug addiction is that homosexuality won't kill you stone dead, through physiological causes or self-destructive behavior.
Couple relevant Google searches will show that plenty of people use drugs without being killed by them and plenty of people willing to argue that homosexuality is a lifestyle that results in poor health or death. I don't agree with the argument but it's been made and really it's a matter of degree. Everybody eventually dies from something.
At least part of the "self-destructive behavior" in both cases is a result of societal and legal factors inhibiting and stigmatizing the person who engages in the original behavior.
Mountain, I can't say you're wrong about choice (I'd actually use the word preference, but I'm pedantic like that) but none of the innovation I'm talking about is mutually inclusive with a 1984-type, brainwashing totalitarian state. It's a lot closer to mental health treatment, actually.
@Man in Black you don't seem especially receptive to people who disagree with you even when they do so only rhetorically. My guess is you're looking for a fight (or a chance to signal) more than an actual discussion. Or "debate" as implied in the title of the thread. And so, as Paul Harvey would say... good day.
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Good thing it's quite unlikely to be a simple, or safe, process. You would need a specially-tailored replacement of synapses, I think, in pretty large parts of the brain to even be able to approach what you're talking about. This makes it a matter of hypercomplex nanotech structures - something that's a fair bit away.
Good thing it's quite unlikely to be a simple, or safe, process. You would need a specially-tailored replacement of synapses, I think, in pretty large parts of the brain to even be able to approach what you're talking about. This makes it a matter of hypercomplex nanotech structures - something that's a fair bit away.
More the reason for assimilation....!
Mountain, I can't say you're wrong about choice (I'd actually use the word preference, but I'm pedantic like that) but none of the innovation I'm talking about is mutually inclusive with a 1984-type, brainwashing totalitarian state. It's a lot closer to mental health treatment, actually.I'd be curious to know what kind of mental health treatment.
I trimmed some, just for the sake of space.
Here's the thing: I can't possibly answer that question, because the innovations I'm talking about haven't happened yet. "Reprogram the brain" is an entirely hypothetical statement at this point. That's why I think you're over reacting in the first place.
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"Reprogram the brain" is an entirely hypothetical statement at this point. That's why I think you're over reacting in the first place.
I'll be the first to say that actually doing it isn't something that's even remotely close, but I think the writing's on the wall that it could be done, given sufficient chemical and biological knowledge. I just think it will take a couple centuries more research before we get even a basic, crude handle on it.
Look at how lithium drugs revolutionized the treatment of bipolar disorder -- we stopped pretending it was some sort of spiritual mind thing with no physical basis, and instead starting treating it as a chemical imbalance that was physically making the brain produce oscillating output.
Two hundred years ago we rode around in wooden wagons, but had a pretty good idea that mechanical flight was possible. Now flying to the Moon is old hat.
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What we need to be afraid of is not bogeymen that are admittedly pretty far away. We need to make sure we don't end up in an authoritarian state - whether such a state would make limiting energy consumption easier, get us a handle on the population growth, enforce "social justice" or anything else. As long as we have an authoritarian state, everything that CAN be used to control the individual WILL be. There's your nightmare. So, get cracking on dismantling the ubiquitous surveillance, and make sure the policy-makers fear the people again.
I don't disagree by any means Kirth, I'm just saying that we're nowhere near a practical application of "reprogram the brain," and Mountain seems to be concerned about the coming epidemic of people being roofied with ground-up "reprogram the brain" pills. (No insult, Mountain.)
Re: "Is it worth the effort?" When it comes to health care, there's infinite money to be made. Look at the immense profits in the pharmaceutical industry. Look at what people pay rehab clinics today, despite their low long-term success rates. People will pay anything to be "better." If you could eventually take one millionaire celebrity and surgically "cure" his/her addiction to heroin, that would open the floodgates. Within a few years, rich people would pay outrageous sums to be cured of their tendency to forget where they put their car keys.
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The difference between homosexuality and drug addiction is that homosexuality won't kill you stone dead, through physiological causes or self-destructive behavior.Couple relevant Google searches will show that plenty of people use drugs without being killed by them and plenty of people willing to argue that homosexuality is a lifestyle that results in poor health or death. I don't agree with the argument but it's been made and really it's a matter of degree. Everybody eventually dies from something.
At least part of the "self-destructive behavior" in both cases is a result of societal and legal factors inhibiting and stigmatizing the person who engages in the original behavior.
Some people are willing to argue the Earth is flat. Willingness to argue is not sufficient evidence that something is true.
Just to clarify, when I talk about my own experience using the patch to quit smoking, I'm saying medical treatment as in taking the full course of proscribed antibiotics, rather than medical treatment as in surgery.
The reason people do drugs is because it feels good.
Give them something that feels better and they'll stop doing drugs.Except LSD, cuz LSD is amaaaaaaaazing.
Until that day you are eaten by a swarm of spiders.
Being pedantic about "Drinking bleach isn't a disease" is splitting hairs. When someone drinks bleach, they still require medical treatment before it is time to figure out why they drank it in the first place. Just because you treat it with charcoal and a stomach pump instead of antibiotics and surgery is beside the point.
I guess... but I still think research costs would be prohibitive. But yeah, in healthcare, people will pay anything. Although (from my own experiences) people worry about DEATH. Clear, visible causes of DEATH get a lot more attention than stuff like addiction.
There's FAR more money in plastic surgery than in medically-necessary surgery. And look at the profits in the "self-help" field. More to the point of mind-alteration though physical means, when you get a chance, Google the profits from Ritalin and Adderol sales sometime.
Tell someone you can improve their focus or whatever through surgery and there would be suckers lining up around the block.
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I guess... but I still think research costs would be prohibitive. But yeah, in healthcare, people will pay anything. Although (from my own experiences) people worry about DEATH. Clear, visible causes of DEATH get a lot more attention than stuff like addiction.There's FAR more money in plastic surgery than in medically-necessary surgery. And look at the profits in the "self-help" field. Tell someone you can improve their focus or whatever through surgery and there would be suckers lining up around the block.
Quoting Roger Ebert, as best as I can remember:
"I saw a world famous actress in the Self-Help section of the bookstore. Doesn't she know that people read those books to get where she is? Maybe there should be a section the bookstore called Uninstall."
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@Man in Black you don't seem especially receptive to people who disagree with you even when they do so only rhetorically. My guess is you're looking for a fight (or a chance to signal) more than an actual discussion. Or "debate" as implied in the title of the thread. And so, as Paul Harvey would say... good day.
There are two reasons to go about* disagreeing with people 'rhetorically'.
The first is to point out flaws in the argument of someone with whom you agree, but whose actual argument is not logically valid.
The second is arguing for the sake of arguing. That is 'looking for a fight'. Man in Black and I don't get along, but I'm pretty sure you're doing the second.
I've never found conversations where someone is playing Devil's Advocate, just to play Devil's Advocate, to be particularly fruitful. It's as useful as declaring "all of reality could just be a program fed to my brain, which is really in a jar some where". It doesn't really take the conversation any where interesting OR useful.
Hopefully I'm not being too rude Kirth, I'm doing my best but I'm afraid I might be a bit sharp with my words.
I'm not sensing any rudeness at all, SOM. You're offering counterpoints to what I'm saying, which is a straightforward and clear way of communicating.
I'm still forced to disagree, though. When I think of the money in Ritalin, and in rehab clinics, and in psychiatry, and in "criminal rehabilitation," and then add them all up -- yeah, I think the research dollars will be there. Especially given the 200 years or so we'll need to get to where I'm talking about. In that period of time, some other avenues of "necessary" research may give us most of the tools we need, in fact.
Being pedantic about "Drinking bleach isn't a disease" is splitting hairs. When someone drinks bleach, they still require medical treatment before it is time to figure out why they drank it in the first place. Just because you treat it with charcoal and a stomach pump instead of antibiotics and surgery is beside the point.So is getting shot a disease because it requires medical treatment before it is time to figure out why they got shot?
No. It's an injury. As I've said, I'm not sure 'disease' is the right word for addiction. 'Medical condition' is much too vague. I'm not actually sure English has the right word, unless we change 'addiction' to have a connotation to be a subtype of 'medical/neurological/psychological problem' instead of a moral failing.
In context, I was replying to someone who was asserting that addiction doesn't get to qualify as a disease because it is not a disease in the same sense as cancer, and used a glassful of bleach as an example of something that wasn't a disease that still requires treatment.
I was saying that person was missing the whole point of saying addiction is a disease.
a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, esp. one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.
I think things like alcoholism actually fit that definition pretty accurately.
@ Ross Byers I'm interested in people thinking out their conclusions thoroughly, I noted what I thought was an inconsistency / cognitive dissonance. As is typical of such inconsistencies, the dichotomy was (surprise!) one conclusion is socially acceptable to express ("nothing wrong with gay people!") and one conclusion less so ("using drugs doesn't mean you're an addict who needs treatment!").
And, not surprisingly, the social signaling has aligned in just such a way, with everybody helpfully telling me how wrong my opinions are, because even though I agree with them, I had the temerity to report the existence and opinions of people who do not.
@Irontruth and others - it's relevant what "people" argue / believe / think when you're talking about something with political dimensions. If you're going to start treating every trivial "addiction" as a disease, you have to consider the legal and political ramifications of that decision, i.e. involuntary commitment. As previously alluded. Actual objective reality is not decided by consensus, but political and legal reality can be, even (horrors!) in contravention to the truth.
And I would think it was obvious from my example re: drinking bleach is - when someone drinks bleach, you don't say "this person is a bleach drinker", as though it were a pathology, you say, "this is a person who has drunk bleach," as though it was a one-time occurrence/accident.
Standard Disclaimers: I hope this clears it up, I know I'm inarticulate at times, don't bear anyone any malice.
I've never found conversations where someone is playing Devil's Advocate, just to play Devil's Advocate, to be particularly fruitful. It's as useful as declaring "all of reality could just be a program fed to my brain, which is really in a jar some where". It doesn't really take the conversation any where interesting OR useful.
I disagree!
Seriously, you don't think there's any benefit in having your thinking challenged or critiqued?
Being pedantic about "Drinking bleach isn't a disease" is splitting hairs. When someone drinks bleach, they still require medical treatment before it is time to figure out why they drank it in the first place. Just because you treat it with charcoal and a stomach pump instead of antibiotics and surgery is beside the point.So is getting shot a disease because it requires medical treatment before it is time to figure out why they got shot?No. It's an injury. As I've said, I'm not sure 'disease' is the right word for addiction. 'Medical condition' is much too vague. I'm not actually sure English has the right word, unless we change 'addiction' to have a connotation to be a subtype of 'medical/neurological/psychological problem' instead of a moral failing.
In context, I was replying to someone who was asserting that addiction doesn't get to qualify as a disease because it is not a disease in the same sense as cancer, and used a glassful of bleach as an example of something that wasn't a disease that still requires treatment.
I was saying that person was missing the whole point of saying addiction is a disease.
Also, if someone comes in to the hospital with a new gunshot wound once a week for four weeks in a row, odds are they'll get an interview with social workers and mental health professional, and the police, just figure what the hell is going on in that person's life. No reason addicts shouldn't receive that robust a set of follow up interviews, just to figure out the same thing.
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I've never found conversations where someone is playing Devil's Advocate, just to play Devil's Advocate, to be particularly fruitful. It's as useful as declaring "all of reality could just be a program fed to my brain, which is really in a jar some where". It doesn't really take the conversation any where interesting OR useful.I disagree!
Seriously, you don't think there's any benefit in having your thinking challenged or critiqued?
I don't mind being challenged. I dislike being contrary for contrariness' sake.
If you want to point out the flaw in someone's thinking, you're going to have to come at it with something better than "these people over here think their invisible skyman told them that this is wrong". Whether they believe it to be true or not has no actual bearing on the truth. Just because I think the Moon is made of cheese does not suddenly make that an actual possibility.
You're "challenging" so far amounts to making claims with no foundation in fact. You are being contrary just to be contrary.
And I would think it was obvious from my example re: drinking bleach is - when someone drinks bleach, you don't say "this person is a bleach drinker", as though it were a pathology, you say, "this is a person who has drunk bleach," as though it was a one-time occurrence/accident.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at here.
Disease, no. Mental illness, most definately.Do you think there's something to be gained from parsing the difference between disease and the "illness" aspect of mental illness? Before your proceed to actually determine what that difference is, I want to hear what the benefits of this will be. How will the conversation on the topic improve?
A disease is something that you can vaccinate against or provide some other medical cure or treatment for.
A mental illness usually takes a different approach to fix, like therapy.Which do you think better qualifies?