TY - JOUR
T1 - Embodying addiction
T2 - A predictive processing account
AU - Miller, Mark
AU - Kiverstein, Julian
AU - Rietveld, Erik
N1 - Funding Information: Mark Miller carried out this work with the support of Horizon 2020 European Union ERC Advanced Grant XSPECT - DLV-692739 . Julian Kiverstein and Erik Rietveld are supported by the European Research Council in the form of ERC Starting Grant 679190 (EU Horizon 2020) for the project AFFORDS-HIGHER, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the form of a VIDI-grant awarded to Erik Rietveld, and by a project grant from the Amsterdam Brain and Cognition research group at the University of Amsterdam . Funding Information: Mark Miller carried out this work with the support of Horizon 2020 European Union ERC Advanced Grant XSPECT - DLV-692739. Julian Kiverstein and Erik Rietveld are supported by the European Research Council in the form of ERC Starting Grant 679190 (EU Horizon 2020) for the project AFFORDS-HIGHER, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the form of a VIDI-grant awarded to Erik Rietveld, and by a project grant from the Amsterdam Brain and Cognition research group at the University of Amsterdam. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 The Authors Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/2
Y1 - 2020/2
N2 - In this paper we show how addiction can be thought of as the outcome of learning. We look to the increasingly influential predictive processing theory for an account of how learning can go wrong in addiction. Perhaps counter intuitively, it is a consequence of this predictive processing perspective on addiction that while the brain plays a deep and important role in leading a person into addiction, it cannot be the whole story. We'll argue that predictive processing implies a view of addiction not as a brain disease, but rather as a breakdown in the dynamics of the wider agent-environment system. The environment becomes meaningfully organised around the agent's drug-seeking and using behaviours. Our account of addiction offers a new perspective on what is harmful about addiction. Philosophers often characterise addiction as a mental illness because addicts irrationally shift in their judgement of how they should act based on cues that predict drug use. We argue that predictive processing leads to a different view of what can go wrong in addiction. We suggest that addiction can prove harmful to the person because as their addiction progressively takes hold, the addict comes to embody a predictive model of the environment that fails to adequately attune them to a volatile, dynamic environment. The use of an addictive substance produces illusory feedback of being well-attuned to the environment when the reality is the opposite. This can be comforting for a person inhabiting a hostile niche, but it can also prove to be harmful to the person as they become skilled at living the life of an addict, to the neglect of all other alternatives. The harm in addiction we'll argue is not to be found in the brains of addicts, but in their way of life.
AB - In this paper we show how addiction can be thought of as the outcome of learning. We look to the increasingly influential predictive processing theory for an account of how learning can go wrong in addiction. Perhaps counter intuitively, it is a consequence of this predictive processing perspective on addiction that while the brain plays a deep and important role in leading a person into addiction, it cannot be the whole story. We'll argue that predictive processing implies a view of addiction not as a brain disease, but rather as a breakdown in the dynamics of the wider agent-environment system. The environment becomes meaningfully organised around the agent's drug-seeking and using behaviours. Our account of addiction offers a new perspective on what is harmful about addiction. Philosophers often characterise addiction as a mental illness because addicts irrationally shift in their judgement of how they should act based on cues that predict drug use. We argue that predictive processing leads to a different view of what can go wrong in addiction. We suggest that addiction can prove harmful to the person because as their addiction progressively takes hold, the addict comes to embody a predictive model of the environment that fails to adequately attune them to a volatile, dynamic environment. The use of an addictive substance produces illusory feedback of being well-attuned to the environment when the reality is the opposite. This can be comforting for a person inhabiting a hostile niche, but it can also prove to be harmful to the person as they become skilled at living the life of an addict, to the neglect of all other alternatives. The harm in addiction we'll argue is not to be found in the brains of addicts, but in their way of life.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85076682349&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2019.105495
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2019.105495
M3 - Article
C2 - 31877434
SN - 0278-2626
VL - 138
JO - Brain and Cognition
JF - Brain and Cognition
M1 - 105495
ER -