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Personality Basins

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160 points qouteall | 5 comments | 21 Nov 24 12:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.483s | source
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wavemode ◴[21 Nov 24 13:18 UTC] No.42204042[source]▶
This article approaches human psychology from the perspective that, we are all neural networks and our output (actions) are all a learned function of our inputs (experiences).

This is a common (and convenient) perspective, especially among engineers, but doesn't reflect reality particularly well. We know large swathes of a person's personality is directly linked to their genetics.

The article extrapolates this neural network perspective onto other topics like, mental disorders and depression. The solution is made clear then - just learn how to not be mentally ill! Again, convenient. But not really reflective of reality.

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1. jw1224 ◴[21 Nov 24 13:28 UTC] No.42204120[source]▶
That’s not how I read it, I think you’re missing some nuance here.

The article doesn’t imply genetics have no effect, it just treats them as a baseline which are then adjusted over time according to the person’s lived experiences.

Likewise with mental disorders and depression, the “solution” you claim it states as “not being mentally ill” is the outcome of a process, not the process itself.

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2. wavemode ◴[21 Nov 24 13:52 UTC] No.42204291[source]▶
The process itself, as far as I can tell from the article, seems to be "increase your learning rate", "change your environment", "meet new people", "take psychedelics".

My point is not that doing these things is never beneficial (well, one may argue about the psychedelics lol), just that it oversimplifies the problem space (and solution space) to the point of not being useful advice.

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3. LoganDark ◴[21 Nov 24 14:11 UTC] No.42204461[source]▶
> My point is not that doing these things is never beneficial (well, one may argue about the psychedelics lol)

In our experience, psychedelics are very hit-or-miss depending on the person. Some (like us) take high doses regularly without much consequence, others can suffer terrible damage after just a single dose. It can be difficult or impossible to predict, anyone who's unwilling to take the risk probably shouldn't.

4. Balgair ◴[21 Nov 24 20:48 UTC] No.42208512[source]▶
> it just treats them as a baseline which are then adjusted over time according to the person’s lived experiences.

So like the randomization process that seeds the values for RNN weights?

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5. Nevermark ◴[21 Nov 24 21:12 UTC] No.42208709[source]▶
And the architecture which determines what units have weights between them.

And the training rules, that determine which weights are adjusted in response to what units.