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Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

sciencedaily.com

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Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#201

Post by qwerty456127 »

Reelin wrote: post #194
qwerty456127 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every time I find interesting (and frighting) that we are nothing but a collection of ourselves and virus and bacterias, written down to our DNA and RNA or living together with close dependence deep in our guts (literally). That's our bodies, not us. "Every time I find interesting (and fighting)" that people believe they are nothing but a collection of cells, chemicals and feelings. Most people (outside the audienc…

You're a substance dualist, then? The obvious opposing view to what you've just expressed would be that you are your body, and that what you just described as your true self is merely one part of you introspecting about another part of you. And of course, as far as I'm aware science can say nothing convincing about all of this at present so it's purely an exercise in philosophy and logic.

> You're a substance dualist, then?

Not really, I am a non-dualist actually but introducing non-duality in the current context would be a way too off-topic and unnecessary. I prefer not to go into the spiritual stuff beyond what can be easily experienced by everyone unless asked by a person specifically interested in this kind of information.

> it's purely an exercise in philosophy and logic

It's not. It's of little use as long as it is. One has to experience that. That's why I've mentioned the rubber hand illusion. Imagine your hands have been covered from you since you very birth and you have been believing the rubber hands are your real hands for your whole life, then the cover is removed and you experience your actual hands for the first time - it feels like this (approximately). This is how I've got into Buddhism - all the major religions tell you unverifiable things and demand you to believe and here the whole clue is a thing we can experience directly. I've used a quote from the Babylon-5 show because it's a lot about this and you suddenly find yourself understanding the Vorlons' "Who are you?" and "We are all Kosh" after you experience that.

I also suspect this kind of realization may happen to render people nearly-immune to addictions, I would even do some sort of clinical testing if only I had enough money (by the way, some time ago we have already seen news about mindful people being scientifically proven feeling less pain here on HN).

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#202

Post by lovich »

dfee wrote: post #119
hellofunk wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of dog behavior that does this? I'm curious.

Here’s that behavior on display: https://www.reddit.com/r/rarepuppers/comments/9ime34/heckin_...

Not sure why you are being downvoted. This link is one of the recent examples I was thinking of. The dog has been taught to not eat the food even when a human isn't around protecting the food. That requires ignoring one part of its biology for other benefits.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#203

Post by qwerty456127 »

cgio wrote: post #191
qwerty456127 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every time I find interesting (and frighting) that we are nothing but a collection of ourselves and virus and bacterias, written down to our DNA and RNA or living together with close dependence deep in our guts (literally). That's our bodies, not us. "Every time I find interesting (and fighting)" that people believe they are nothing but a collection of cells, chemicals and feelings. Most people (outside the audienc…

Are we not a little bit our car and our github account though? Growing up I wondered whether you could peel the banana all the way to its core of nothingness.

My recommendation is to keep wondering.

As for me it took me about 30 years of wondering before I've suddenly found it (by stumbling upon this fairly fun Buddhist monk lecture[1] while being extremely depressed and afraid and searching through YouTube looking for some psychological technique to relieve that). Whatever what I've found is from the philosophic or spiritual point of view, from the pragmatic point of view it seems an extremely powerful key to emotional well-being.

AFAIK there is a fair amount of scientific research effort taking place around mindfulness and other Buddhist stuff, perhaps sooner or later this is going to draw some scientific attention too. By the way, it seems at least some scientifically-minded people happen to come to similar ideas occasionally, e.g. I've recently stumbled upon similar concepts in a book by Itzhak Bentov and was delighted by his scientific manner of exploration of the question of "life, universe, and everything".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frQVcizEkmI

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#204

Post by jhayward »

lazyjones wrote: post #171

Is it possible to just wipe all known virus remains from our DNA and if yes, what would happen? Would the resulting organism even be able to live?

This is akin to asking to delete huge portions of human evolution from the genome. It probably isn't going to work out like you'd want.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#205

Post by trophycase »

lazyjones wrote: post #171

Is it possible to just wipe all known virus remains from our DNA and if yes, what would happen? Would the resulting organism even be able to live?

Perhaps the gene that makes people more prone to addiction also makes them take more risk or work harder? You can't just delete shit from an extremely complex system and expect it will just work.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#206

Post by canhascodez »

skosch wrote: post #175
leggomylibro wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neal Stephenson does a good job of presenting that sort of attitude in Cryptonomicon : "I don't like the word 'addict' because it has terrible connotations," Root says one day, as they are sunning themselves on the afterdeck. "Instead of slapping a label on you, the Germans would describe you as 'Morphiumsüchtig.' The verb suchen means to seek. So that might be translated, loosely, as 'morphine seeky' or even more lo…

Stephenson is great, but just for the record, the claim that Germans understand "süchtig" as "seeking" goes too far. Süchtig is the adjective to Sucht (addiction), not to Suche (search), and although the etymological link is clear, there's nothing romantic or compassionate about the word.

Thanks: I'm sure I would have gone a long ways before discovering anything more about the context of that statement. However, I note that Stephenson does seem to have described this as a loose translation. Is the German word used as an adjective, or is that also an issue of translation?

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#207

Post by gammateam »

mc32 wrote: post #144
mcfunk wrote: post #134

It's almost as if evidence continues to mount that addiction is a health issue and should be treated as such, rather than as a matter of criminality. For anyone interested in further reading on the topic I highly recommend information available from the Institute For Addiction Study ( https://www.theinstituteforaddictionstudy.org/ ).

Certain aspects? Sure. All aspects? No. I don’t mind the buying the use and the minor incidentsl things. But if the addiction causes harm, be it physical, material or other major impacts on others, then it becomes both a health issue and a criminsl issue (stealing, hit and runs, deception, and obviously more). But yes, let’s try and treat it first rather than seek punishment first.

Although you're open to other perspectives, I think you're addicted to punishment.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#208

Post by manmal »

dustingetz wrote: post #101
manmal wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most institutions don’t want to let their clients go—why should AA be any different.

i think you have it backwards- institutions that don’t self sustain, don’t survive.

IDK. There’s no shortage of alcoholics, so they could deal with people exiting after 2y or so, without dissolving. Instead, they are like boy/girlscouts for grownups without the age limit.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#209

Post by 1_over_n »

the_jeremy wrote: post #155
WhompingWindows wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very sensible that the mutation relates to the dopaminergic activity, just based on our knowledge of the reward pathway and the effect of addictive drugs on dopamine. There may even been a positive feedback loop here, as any viral gene inserted that increases risky, impulsive behavior may also encourage procreation.

While that might be true today, I don't agree that increasing risk-taking behaviors was evolutionarily advantageous past some equilibrium (otherwise, we'd have a new equilibrium).

Depends whether you consider this to be evolutionary advantageous to us or the virus/bacteria...similar example from toxoplasmosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis

Geoffrey West touches upon some of this stuff in scale - its worth a read

https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainabi...

Oversimplification is that some of the viruses / genetic defects that kill us later let us live long enough to reproduce first and pass those traits/infections along.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#210

Post by ridgeguy »

mbroncano wrote: post #197

Just to add one more sci-fi reference, this reminds me of mind rot virus in A Deepness in the Sky [0] by Vernor Vinge [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky

I'll add one more sci-fi reference involving HERVs: Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_Radio

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