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A Minimally-biased Philosophy of Life: Testable/Informational addictions

Question: What addiction-like feedback loops can occur in informational beings?

Our hypothesis: Informational structures as complex as human brains require highly specific informational environments to stay in proper calibration, i.e. "natural statistics" in the fullest possible sense:

  1. Synchronized multi-sensory input.

  2. Origin-points in local 3-D space.

  3. Structure which is multi-scale and continuous in space and time.

  4. Structure not enhanced for sensorimotor consumption.

If any of those features are absent--in particular if the sensory input is structured specifically for human consumption, as one finds in man-made environments and technology--then such input might sate the desire for naturalistic input without providing the needed re-calibration, thereby resulting in further de-calibration, further desire, and possibly addiction.

Attractive but statistically un-natural input creates informational addiction.

Test: Determine whether 3-D social skills (e.g. reading moods from faces) suffers disproportionately among those who spend the most time "socializing" via screens rather than face-to-face.

Refutation: Show that social communication via screens promotes social skills and confidence.

(Every parent I know is familiar with at least one child whose social skills suffer from some form of screen addiction: gaming, internet, texting, etc. In fact there seems to be a mental-health crisis worldwide, specifically relating social dysfunction and technology over-consumption).

The figures below show self-calibration strategies as functions of environmental entropy (shown as Bell curves, with low entropy at left and high entropy at right).