The feel-good explanation is not enough, because very often we act wrongly simply because it is wrong.
The classic example is in City of God by Augustine, where he recounts a time he broke into an orchard and stole a bunch of apples. Having escaped, he merely had a couple bites before he left the apples on the ground to rot.
More accurately, we act wrong because acting wrong releases certain chemicals in our brain that we perceive as pleasurable.
Generally speaking, people engage in vices because they have been conditioned by evolution to find certain things pleasurable in order to survive. We like to eat fatty foods because, historically, fatty foods were hard to come by and our bodies were designed to reward our consumption of these necessary nutrients with pleasure. We like to have sex because our bodies were designed to make reproduction pleasurable so as to make us do it a lot. We like drugs because they trick our brains into releasing pleasurable chemicals at times when they otherwise wouldn't.
Our bodies evolved to maximize our survival and procreation in a primitive world. Unfortunately for us, in the modern world, many of these actions are actively bad for us. What once became essential activities have become vices. I wouldn't be surprised if, thousands of years from now, what people considered "pleasurable" changed substantially, especially regarding things like what foods were yummy. Perhaps we'll evolve into a people who largely love to eat healthy food and work out.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Even more accurately, at one point in our branching, chaotic evolutionary history, there were creates who didn't enjoy having sex. A series of random mutations occured which split the population into Species1 and Species2. They were exactly the same except for the sex thing, but the ones who enjoyed it had it more. They won. And now every single one of their offspring since then have enjoyed sex. The original evolution may just have been a defect in how chemicals released during sex, probably to offset... whatever. Refractory periods or something...
Or more pertinent. Only those who exercise and eat healthy foods will survive. So everyone living past that point will eat healthy and exercise. Won't happen, though. We keep everyone alive.
Well actually I'm not a huge fan of retributive justice either, but I'm equally opposed to granting consideration to argument of the opposite extreme in vague terms - I just think it harms any attempt at getting reasonable discourse or reform.
Opposite extreme?
Calling detainment a barbaric practice is the opposite extreme. There are obviously situations under which it is handy, and there are a lot of people in this sort of discussion with high emotions about crimes which have been committed against them. "Attacking" what they feel as justice in such terms is only going to harm any hope of effecting some type of change.
Or more pertinent. Only those who exercise and eat healthy foods will survive. So everyone living past that point will eat healthy and exercise. Won't happen, though. We keep everyone alive.
Well, that's not entirely true. Evolution only cares about you being able to make babies that are able to make more babies. Since we are able to do that at a fairly young age, living unhealthily and dieing at 50 will not be the kind of behavior that gets rooted out.
Well, technically, evolution doesn't care about shit. Cause it's not real. :winky:
It's just a large process which tends to favor traits which increase survival. There's more at play. Peacocks are the most obvious example for evolutionarily favorable traits which don't directly, positively affect survival.
Plus, there's the effect of the human mind. As time goes on, civilization globally, I predict, will progress. Most of the world is already pretty goddamn secular. It'll continue like that for a long time, and healthy habits will just be the norm.
Is this thread actually about building a etiological model of addiction?
People with PhDs and years of experience can't adequately answer the question "Why do we vice?" Ask 12 experts and you'll get 13 answers, all of them incomplete. We understand pieces of processes involved, but we're nowhere near figuring them all out.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Given determinism, it's generally our fault. But you still had a choice.
That doesn't make any sense. And your spoiled comment was the opposite of illuminating.
It can make sense, kind of. If he's talking about what I think he's talking about.
For example, say I was hungry for dessert, and you placed a chocolate cake and a carrot cake in front of me. I love chocolate cake, and hate carrot cake.
There's almost no chance that I would go for the carrot cake, because carrot cake is nasty. And there's little chance that I'd forgo the chocolate cake, because I'm hungry. Therefore, the situation and my own mind/preferences have "predestined" my choice before I make it.
...but I still make the choice. It's not like something is forcing me into eating that chocolate cake; it's still my mind (even if it is subconscious) reacting to a situation and making a choice between a few options. The option is still there, even if I will opt not to choose it, every time.
And damn is that chocolate cake tasty - seriously, why would I even want to choose the carrot cake anyway, or care that I never really considered eating it? It's in that sense that you can say someone is predetermined by his nature/mind/externalities/etc, but still be making a choice and still responsible for those choices.
Also -
In regards to procrastination (the OP's "vice"), I've actually read a few articles on the subject and written a short paper about it. I think that people tend to use procrastination as a self-defense mechanism against failure. Say, for example, you were to spend a lot of time working on a project, put your all into it, and then submit it to review/scrutiny. If people like it, then awesome! But if people think it's mediocre, then it makes you feel like crap - like your all wasn't good enough.
But if you procrastinate, it becomes win/win. If you wait til the last minute to write a paper, then turn it in and get an awesome grade on it, then awesome, you're a genius! You don't even have to work that hard to do well! And if you procrastinate on a paper and do poorly, then hey, it's not really your fault. If you had actually put work into it, you would have gotten a fantastic grade, easy peasy. You just didn't, that's all.
That's why I think procrastination is less a vice then it is a display of insecurity. Not that I'm judging you or anything, I procrastinate like a motherfucker
In regards to procrastination (the OP's "vice"), I've actually read a few articles on the subject and written a short paper about it. I think that people tend to use procrastination as a self-defense mechanism against failure. Say, for example, you were to spend a lot of time working on a project, put your all into it, and then submit it to review/scrutiny. If people like it, then awesome! But if people think it's mediocre, then it makes you feel like crap - like your all wasn't good enough.
Speaking from personal experience (as a drug user, not proud, not ashamed)
Its not necessarily a bad thing. Really.
You can enjoy drugs, even get quite heavily into them at times and not be negativly affected by it.
Take the drug Ketamine for example:
Its a horse tranquiliser, dryed to a powder form and snorted it gives the user a relaxing floaty, disassociated feeling.
Personally I find this drug very social in the right settings. Say you're sitting arround with some friends in a house, all on ket. Because of the nature of the drug (it can be slightly confusing), it seems like you're the only people in the world. Theres none of the worries or hardships, just you and your friends that exist in the room.
Where are the negative effects of this? Is it even a vice?
Peacocks are the most obvious example for evolutionarily favorable traits which don't directly, positively affect survival.
?
Peacock feathers are an enhancement of sexual display, therefore increase chances of reproduction and are propogated, but do not particularly aid in the survival or environmental adaptation of the individual bird.
Copperdave more or less hit on what I was getting at, though my wider point was that you need that sort of doublethink in order to build functional society - i.e. if I know you like chocolate cake, then when I give you chocolate cake I have to accept some responsibility for you eating it. However by the same token, from your perspective, you did have a choice whether or not to eat it.
There's a balance between these two parameters most commonly appearing in liability law, though it also concerns me in other areas such as some of the ideas behind the military - a soldier can be ordered to do something, and they will do it but it doesn't excuse his commander from having to know the extent to which they can be expected to perform.
I recognize now that I've been overeating for years as a means of self-medicating my depression. Now that I'm dealing with the depression, I've just got to cut that symptom out.
Speaking from personal experience (as a drug user, not proud, not ashamed)
Its not necessarily a bad thing. Really.
You can enjoy drugs, even get quite heavily into them at times and not be negativly affected by it.
Take the drug Ketamine for example:
Its a horse tranquiliser, dryed to a powder form and snorted it gives the user a relaxing floaty, disassociated feeling.
Personally I find this drug very social in the right settings. Say you're sitting arround with some friends in a house, all on ket. Because of the nature of the drug (it can be slightly confusing), it seems like you're the only people in the world. Theres none of the worries or hardships, just you and your friends that exist in the room.
Where are the negative effects of this? Is it even a vice?
Peacocks are the most obvious example for evolutionarily favorable traits which don't directly, positively affect survival.
?
Peacock feathers are an enhancement of sexual display, therefore increase chances of reproduction and are propogated, but do not particularly aid in the survival or environmental adaptation of the individual bird.
The female must have a good evolutionary reason for finding the tail feathers attractive. I have read that young born from a father with showier feathers are bigger and healthier. Just because there isn't an obvious A-B link doesn't mean it isn't there. Maybe it's because a peacock with a bigger target on his back is more likely to get eaten, so if he DOES make it the point that he can bump uglies, he must be healthy. Those healthy traits get passed on to both genders, but only the males get the targets on their backs.
That's just my theory, what do I know? My real point is I figure there is some way that every favored trait links to making babies. Given a case like this, I can more easily buy that it is some non-obvious reason rather than it's a trait that doesn't help the species make good babies.
Peacocks are the most obvious example for evolutionarily favorable traits which don't directly, positively affect survival.
?
Peacock feathers are an enhancement of sexual display, therefore increase chances of reproduction and are propogated, but do not particularly aid in the survival or environmental adaptation of the individual bird.
The female must have a good evolutionary reason for finding the tail feathers attractive. I have read that young born from a father with showier feathers are bigger and healthier. Just because there isn't an obvious A-B link doesn't mean it isn't there. Maybe it's because a peacock with a bigger target on his back is more likely to get eaten, so if he DOES make it the point that he can bump uglies, he must be healthy. Those healthy traits get passed on to both genders, but only the males get the targets on their backs.
That's just my theory, what do I know? My real point is I figure there is some way that every favored trait links to making babies. Given a case like this, I can more easily buy that it is some non-obvious reason rather than it's a trait that doesn't help the species make good babies.
Bear in mind though that the feathers and the display only indicate mate selection preference. There's no particular reason they need have anything to do with actual survivability, we simply assume it works because if the offspring all die they don't pass anything on. The large showy feathers could simply be better at drawing attention from other birds, and have nothing to do with survivability of the offspring (i.e. less showy feathers don't mean anything except other birds ignore you).
In regards to procrastination (the OP's "vice"), I've actually read a few articles on the subject and written a short paper about it. I think that people tend to use procrastination as a self-defense mechanism against failure. Say, for example, you were to spend a lot of time working on a project, put your all into it, and then submit it to review/scrutiny. If people like it, then awesome! But if people think it's mediocre, then it makes you feel like crap - like your all wasn't good enough.
Insecurity is a cause of a lot of vice. Trust me.
I think one of the failures in dealing with and facing vice is the idea that there is one be all end all cause for them, or that there may be different ones for different people. I think it's more likely that there are multiple causes all feeding on each other. Take the above example of procrastination. Yes, insecurity is a definite cause of it. I know because I'm a chronic procrastinator myself, and insecurity about my work is a definite problem for me. However, I've also realize that I procrastinate because some baser instinct in me wants to find something that feels good now, rather than delay that gratification to later so I can get my work done. When the insecurity and need for instant gratification combine, you get very heavily drawn into vice and find it difficult to get out. Other possible reasons include force of habit and the accompanying resistance to change, self-destructive tendencies, etc.
When you look at these, it becomes hard to believe that vice is cause by a single thing and is likely the result of multiple issues working in tandem, some possible feeding off of another.
Peacocks are the most obvious example for evolutionarily favorable traits which don't directly, positively affect survival.
?
Peacock feathers are an enhancement of sexual display, therefore increase chances of reproduction and are propogated, but do not particularly aid in the survival or environmental adaptation of the individual bird.
The female must have a good evolutionary reason for finding the tail feathers attractive. I have read that young born from a father with showier feathers are bigger and healthier. Just because there isn't an obvious A-B link doesn't mean it isn't there. Maybe it's because a peacock with a bigger target on his back is more likely to get eaten, so if he DOES make it the point that he can bump uglies, he must be healthy. Those healthy traits get passed on to both genders, but only the males get the targets on their backs.
That's just my theory, what do I know? My real point is I figure there is some way that every favored trait links to making babies. Given a case like this, I can more easily buy that it is some non-obvious reason rather than it's a trait that doesn't help the species make good babies.
No, the female mustn't have a good evolutionary reason for finding the tail feathers attractive. Simply that she does find tail feathers attractive is enough to propogate the gene. There are plenty of other examples like this; various species of deer / moose who in the male have developed extraordinarily large & complex antlers, which observing scientists have found to be worse than useless in pretty much all situations (defence, speed, movement, particularly in forests) except one: mating fights. The point being that mating fights don't dictate who the female chooses, they dictate who is left in the area to be the only possible mate.
You are making the mistake of assuming all favourable genetic characteristics are actively selected by one partner. Much of selection, particularly in territorial animals, happens because a favourable genetic characteristic means that animal is the only one of the sex nearby to be selected.
The result is essentially like if people today fancied each other based on the quality of their appendix. It's useless, but still, showy appendices would start being bred into the population.
It's similar to the idea of how markets work, where if you imagine a stockmarket with a big player who makes all their decisions based on sunspots, then pretty soon the market might in fact become linked to sunspots, even though they have nothing to do with stocks.
I love that analogy but I don't know how well it explains anything.
Posts
More accurately, we act wrong because acting wrong releases certain chemicals in our brain that we perceive as pleasurable.
Generally speaking, people engage in vices because they have been conditioned by evolution to find certain things pleasurable in order to survive. We like to eat fatty foods because, historically, fatty foods were hard to come by and our bodies were designed to reward our consumption of these necessary nutrients with pleasure. We like to have sex because our bodies were designed to make reproduction pleasurable so as to make us do it a lot. We like drugs because they trick our brains into releasing pleasurable chemicals at times when they otherwise wouldn't.
Our bodies evolved to maximize our survival and procreation in a primitive world. Unfortunately for us, in the modern world, many of these actions are actively bad for us. What once became essential activities have become vices. I wouldn't be surprised if, thousands of years from now, what people considered "pleasurable" changed substantially, especially regarding things like what foods were yummy. Perhaps we'll evolve into a people who largely love to eat healthy food and work out.
Or more pertinent. Only those who exercise and eat healthy foods will survive. So everyone living past that point will eat healthy and exercise. Won't happen, though. We keep everyone alive.
It's just a large process which tends to favor traits which increase survival. There's more at play. Peacocks are the most obvious example for evolutionarily favorable traits which don't directly, positively affect survival.
Plus, there's the effect of the human mind. As time goes on, civilization globally, I predict, will progress. Most of the world is already pretty goddamn secular. It'll continue like that for a long time, and healthy habits will just be the norm.
People with PhDs and years of experience can't adequately answer the question "Why do we vice?" Ask 12 experts and you'll get 13 answers, all of them incomplete. We understand pieces of processes involved, but we're nowhere near figuring them all out.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Dick.
It can make sense, kind of. If he's talking about what I think he's talking about.
For example, say I was hungry for dessert, and you placed a chocolate cake and a carrot cake in front of me. I love chocolate cake, and hate carrot cake.
There's almost no chance that I would go for the carrot cake, because carrot cake is nasty. And there's little chance that I'd forgo the chocolate cake, because I'm hungry. Therefore, the situation and my own mind/preferences have "predestined" my choice before I make it.
...but I still make the choice. It's not like something is forcing me into eating that chocolate cake; it's still my mind (even if it is subconscious) reacting to a situation and making a choice between a few options. The option is still there, even if I will opt not to choose it, every time.
And damn is that chocolate cake tasty - seriously, why would I even want to choose the carrot cake anyway, or care that I never really considered eating it? It's in that sense that you can say someone is predetermined by his nature/mind/externalities/etc, but still be making a choice and still responsible for those choices.
Also -
In regards to procrastination (the OP's "vice"), I've actually read a few articles on the subject and written a short paper about it. I think that people tend to use procrastination as a self-defense mechanism against failure. Say, for example, you were to spend a lot of time working on a project, put your all into it, and then submit it to review/scrutiny. If people like it, then awesome! But if people think it's mediocre, then it makes you feel like crap - like your all wasn't good enough.
But if you procrastinate, it becomes win/win. If you wait til the last minute to write a paper, then turn it in and get an awesome grade on it, then awesome, you're a genius! You don't even have to work that hard to do well! And if you procrastinate on a paper and do poorly, then hey, it's not really your fault. If you had actually put work into it, you would have gotten a fantastic grade, easy peasy. You just didn't, that's all.
That's why I think procrastination is less a vice then it is a display of insecurity. Not that I'm judging you or anything, I procrastinate like a motherfucker
Insecurity is a cause of a lot of vice. Trust me.
Its not necessarily a bad thing. Really.
You can enjoy drugs, even get quite heavily into them at times and not be negativly affected by it.
Take the drug Ketamine for example:
Its a horse tranquiliser, dryed to a powder form and snorted it gives the user a relaxing floaty, disassociated feeling.
Personally I find this drug very social in the right settings. Say you're sitting arround with some friends in a house, all on ket. Because of the nature of the drug (it can be slightly confusing), it seems like you're the only people in the world. Theres none of the worries or hardships, just you and your friends that exist in the room.
Where are the negative effects of this? Is it even a vice?
Peacock feathers are an enhancement of sexual display, therefore increase chances of reproduction and are propogated, but do not particularly aid in the survival or environmental adaptation of the individual bird.
There's a balance between these two parameters most commonly appearing in liability law, though it also concerns me in other areas such as some of the ideas behind the military - a soldier can be ordered to do something, and they will do it but it doesn't excuse his commander from having to know the extent to which they can be expected to perform.
*shrug* There are worse things for you, I guess, but it still doesn't sound like the best of ideas to me.
That's just my theory, what do I know? My real point is I figure there is some way that every favored trait links to making babies. Given a case like this, I can more easily buy that it is some non-obvious reason rather than it's a trait that doesn't help the species make good babies.
I think one of the failures in dealing with and facing vice is the idea that there is one be all end all cause for them, or that there may be different ones for different people. I think it's more likely that there are multiple causes all feeding on each other. Take the above example of procrastination. Yes, insecurity is a definite cause of it. I know because I'm a chronic procrastinator myself, and insecurity about my work is a definite problem for me. However, I've also realize that I procrastinate because some baser instinct in me wants to find something that feels good now, rather than delay that gratification to later so I can get my work done. When the insecurity and need for instant gratification combine, you get very heavily drawn into vice and find it difficult to get out. Other possible reasons include force of habit and the accompanying resistance to change, self-destructive tendencies, etc.
When you look at these, it becomes hard to believe that vice is cause by a single thing and is likely the result of multiple issues working in tandem, some possible feeding off of another.
No, the female mustn't have a good evolutionary reason for finding the tail feathers attractive. Simply that she does find tail feathers attractive is enough to propogate the gene. There are plenty of other examples like this; various species of deer / moose who in the male have developed extraordinarily large & complex antlers, which observing scientists have found to be worse than useless in pretty much all situations (defence, speed, movement, particularly in forests) except one: mating fights. The point being that mating fights don't dictate who the female chooses, they dictate who is left in the area to be the only possible mate.
You are making the mistake of assuming all favourable genetic characteristics are actively selected by one partner. Much of selection, particularly in territorial animals, happens because a favourable genetic characteristic means that animal is the only one of the sex nearby to be selected.
The result is essentially like if people today fancied each other based on the quality of their appendix. It's useless, but still, showy appendices would start being bred into the population.
or did it used to say "Why do we vice?"
I completely auto-correct that mistake in my brain if so.
It always said "We do we vice?"
Which made me make up a little song that plays when I read the D&D Forum:
"We vice? We do!
We do, we vice.
We vice we do.
We do we vice!"
Etc.