From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Jul 29 2002 - 09:52:10 MDT
On Mon, Jul 29, 2002 at 11:20:11AM -0400, ABlainey@aol.com wrote:
> I snipped this from the article
>
> >Dopamine is an important chemical involved in the brain's reward and
> motivation >system, and in addiction. Its role in the reward system may be to
> help us decide >whether information is relevant or irrelevant, says Fran?oise
> Schenk from the >University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
>
> Could it be that believers really do 'Get Off' on conspiracy theories like a
> drug addiction? Their own brain rewarding them for finding obscure patterns?
Maybe. Hmm... (after a moment of introspection and remembrance of my own
career as a conspiracy theorist): definitely yes. It is *fun* to
discover a new pattern, especially one of gravity.
The dopamine signal may act as a print-now signal, making the found
pattern more likely to be remembered (this is how it works in other
respects). There might be one system generating/detecting patterns,
another evaluating them. The if the first is too inactive, you have a
hard time noticing anything. If it is over-active, then you start to
notice patterns and interesting features all over the place. The second
system checks them, and it is likely this system that determines
dopamine signals depending on how "good" they are. If regulation of the
quality of patterns is impaired, then you start to remember a lot of
useless or spurious patterns. Always having the dopamine signal on would
make you believe a lot of weird stuff, and it likely also affects
pattern generation and association.
It all has something to do with the frontal lobes, dopamine,
schizophrenia and the Gnomes from Zürich.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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