in reply to Re: Personality Splits and Programming
in thread Personality Splits and Programming

This drug does seem to allow some hackers to hyper concentrate for long periods.

I can see how to interpret that phrase such that I don't disagree with it. However, it seems likely that some will interpret it differently and even that eyepopslikeamosquito might have meant it in a way that I strongly disagree with. So I'll take this opportunity to complain about some common misconceptions about ADD/ADHD and medications used to treat it while disputing one interpretation of that sentence.

"hyper focus" is actually a symptom of ADD/ADHD and one that Ritalin (and other drugs) are meant to treat, that is, prevent or reduce in patients with ADD/ADHD. This demonstrates that even the updated moniker, "ADD" (Attention Deficit Disorder), isn't the most accurate possible. A better title might be "Inappropriate Attention Syndrome" (but it sounds like something a stalker would be "diagnosed" with) because two classic symptoms of ADD are pronounced difficulty when trying to focus / stay focused and becoming inappropriately too focused (like becoming so wrapped up in a video game or movie such that physical interference is required). I notice that this latter symptom seems to be greatly ignored in many write-ups about ADD, but multiple doctors, especially ones that specialize in ADD have mentioned this to me (as have many people who have been diagnosed with ADD).

In my experience, if you don't have ADD, then taking ADD medication most often just acts as a stimulant, which isn't likely to help one concentrate for a long period of time. Indeed, Ritalin is close enough to Dexedrine ("speed", which is also used to treat ADD) that it is used as an alternative to "speed" "on the street".

But distractibility is an even more common symptom of ADD. So if somebody has ADD where they have big problems with distractibility but relatively minor problems with "hyper focus", then ADD medication may help greatly with distractibility and not impact "hyper focus" much and leave them prone to focusing on an interesting task for an extended period (to the point of ignoring things that would and should "distract" someone else), especially if on an insufficient dose or on a medication that is less effective for that person.

However, it is likely more accurate to characterize such as the Ritalin preventing distractibility, thus allowing the ADD to cause hyper focus; not that the Ritalin is causing hyper focus.

BTW, I've talked with quite a few people who do not have ADD but know somebody who takes ADD medication. It seems pretty common for people in that position to worry that the patient doesn't really have ADD or is just getting too much medication because the medicine makes too dramatic of a change in the patient's apparent mood / personality. They think the patient is getting an overdose of "calming" medicine, making them too bland or something. If one has ADD, then taking too much ADD medicine is more likely to cause one to be jittery, not be "too calm" (especially with stimulant ADD medications like Ritalin).

This also makes me doubt claims of rampant over-prescribing of ADD medication at the urging of parents and school employees who just want calmer children even though the children being medicated don't actually have ADD. Giving "speed" to a child who doesn't have ADD is likely to make them more hyperactive (which will quickly end the prescribing).

When my twins were 2.5 years old, we gave them some courses of inhaled steroids to treat early symptoms of pneumonia / asthma. Later, one of their friends had to have similar treatments (when she was the same age as they had been). Their friend, after each treatment, would become unable to stay still, running around the house manically. After a few hours, she would start to return to feeling normal and then it was time for her next treatment. Those were very difficult days for her and her parents.

When the doctor sent us home with this medicine for our twins, we were warned that it would make them hyperactive. After the first treatment, both children became calmer, suddenly started talking in complete sentences where we could easily understand what they were saying, and actually sat down. One child calmly drew pictures for 3 hours (sometimes talking), filling a 300-page notebook. They were dramatically more calm and more contented than we had ever seen them before.

We never considered them problematically "hyperactive". They were very active children, but not really atypically so. Based on family history, we were not at all surprised that they might eventually be diagnosed with ADD. But we were quite shocked that a stimulant could have such a dramatic positive effect on them at such a young age (and completely opposite of the effect on a "normal" child). After each subsequent dose, the positive effects were reduced quite a bit, though, for this particular stimulant.

All four of the members of my household who are old enough to be diagnosed with ADD have been. We have each gone through trials with quite a few different ADD medications. Most such trials were at least disappointments, either providing little benefit or causing significant undesirable effects. But we are all currently settled into successful treatment regimens, no two the same (using 4 different drugs). When any of us fail to take our ADD medicine, we become much less successful at coping with rather mundane aspects of life (easily noticed, usually within hours).

The hyperactivity of ADHD is a mechanism for coping with a mental problem (if you'll pardon such blunt phrasing). The medication reduces the mental problem and thus allows the patient to no longer have to be hyperactive just to cope. The medication doesn't directly calm and doesn't (for the most part) directly help with being able to focus. If you don't have the ADD "mental problem", then taking a stimulant isn't likely to help you focus. And ADD medication doesn't prevent somebody from becoming animated; it just allows them to not have to be animated all the time.

Back to the topic of this thread, there are different programming tasks where different environments can help or hinder them. There are programming tasks that require such mental focus that mundane noises like music or nearby conversation are distractions that stop me from making progress. There are programming tasks where some background noise is required in order to be able to keep at the task the most successfully. And I've had cases of programming tasks where being slightly buzzed on alcohol was helpful.

When the alcohol helps, it seems to be that it somewhat slows down and somewhat dulls my mind, making it easier to stay focused for longer. Without alcohol, the task is rather boring and unchalenging and thus hard to keep doing. With alcohol, the task becomes just chalenging enough to keep my attention.

Everybody has an optimal level of stimulation. Most people have a very strong preference for achieving this level of stimulation. So some people are constantly needing to go do something extreme. Some people are constantly looking for a nice quiet place. You can even oversimplify this and decide that daredevils lack internal stimulation so have to seek external stimulation while introverts have rich internal stimulation and thus avoid excess external stimulation.

Some programming tasks are quite taxing on my mental abilities and so I have to do them in the most peaceful of settings. At the other extreme are programming tasks that are only taxing of my patience and thus a beer can be helpful. Most programming tasks for me fall between those two extremes and a little background noise provides just enough additional stimulation such that I don't feel the need to go searching for more stimulation and so can stay focused on programming.

I've had a couple of friends tell stories of programming when more than just buzzed and having amazing revelations... only to wake up the next day to utter crap code that makes no sense at all (and doesn't work). I've never tried to program when drunk.

- tye        

  • Comment on Re^2: Personality Splits and Programming (ritalin)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^3: Personality Splits and Programming (ritalin)
by fullermd (Vicar) on Aug 05, 2009 at 09:58 UTC

    Everybody has an optimal level of stimulation. Most people have a very strong preference for achieving this level of stimulation. [...]

    Some programming tasks are quite taxing on my mental abilities and so I have to do them in the most peaceful of settings. At the other extreme are programming tasks that are only taxing of my patience and thus a beer can be helpful.

    I think this is incomplete.

    A point Marvin Minsky has made is that investigation into "intelligence" is a spurious chase as long as you think of it in the singular. The contention is that what we perceive from the outside as "intelligence" is really a huge bucket of completely unrelated mechanisms for totally different tasks, and what we perceive is an emergent property of all of them acting in semi-random configurations on the tidbits we feed them.

    Now, if you disagree with that in broad, there's no point reading further. But if you go with it, I think it expands the understanding of the issue here. Your "mental abilities" are no more singular than "intelligence" is. Nothing is ever taxing on your mental abilities; it's taxing on some mental ability, or realistically, on some combination of your mental abilities. The rest of them are just sort of floating around twiddling their thumbs.

    That's where distraction comes from; those pieces that aren't being used are still turning over, waiting for something to grab onto. If I don't need my internet connection, I can unplug my router. If I don't need music, I can unplug speakers. Don't need to know the time, unplug the clock. But I can't unplug pieces of my mind. The mind commands the body and it obeys; the mind orders itself and meets resistance.

    There are things I've been unable to make progress on without music playing. Sometimes, very loudly. That's not because the music is helping me think; it's because the music is helping me not think, with those mechanisms that aren't involved in what I'm trying to do, but are still searching for input somewhere. I keep them busy so they don't go seeking out stimulation elsewhere and drag me away. It's actually the same problem you solve when you work in silence; eliminating distractions. It's just that in that case, you're eliminating external distractions, while in the other, you're harnessing external distractions to eliminate internal distractions.

    I'm a twitchy sort; I have to have things on my desk to fiddle with. There's a pen on my keyboard I get to clicking; a folding knife I'll open and close and twirl. I've had a mini-Slinky that got flung around. I've even got a Ball of Whacks. It claims to be a "creativity tool" and a "creative stimulant". But that's crap. Fiddling with it doesn't lead me to new ideas; it keeps my hands and part of my mind busy, so the rest of me can ignore those bits of me and think.

    Heck, it's the same thing you do with kids; you give 'em something harmless (well, as harmless as anything is in the hands of a small destruction machine :) to do to keep them out of your way while you try to do something else. All your mental tools are like little children in that way; if you don't feed them, they'll scream and yell until you do, so if you want to be able to get anything done they need to be either involved in it (and some problem do involve nearly everything you can bring to bear), or otherwise appeased. And indeed, chemically-induced altered states can function the same way as these other distractions, at least for some people.

    Well, except most jurisdictions frown on applying them to your kids...

[reply]

      Thanks for your thoughts.

      I don't have a strong opinion one way or another about "multiple intelligences". It certainly makes sense in many ways to me.

      But it also seems to at least somewhat contradict one phenomenon I noted. Certain programming tasks require so much concentration that I must have utter peace. I really don't think that these programming tasks exercise every single one of my brain's "intelligences" so I don't see how total lack of distraction is advantageous there when using this theory of "distracting your other intelligences".

      And, there really does appear to be an optimal level of over-all stimulation that most people strongly work toward. Any number of forms of stimulation work for me, each by itself. So I'm happy riding my bike or reading or doing a puzzle, usually without any extra stimulation. But riding the bus or watching a show or less intense conversation leaves me almost desperate for something to fiddle with. And watching an interesting show or programming usually has me wanting some background task to go along with it.

      Brain wave studies might shed some light on this. Concentrating results in a certain frequency of "brain wave" to become dominant, perhaps to globally communicate to your whole brain to shut up with the distractions unless you are involved in the important work currently being concentrated on?

      - tye        

[reply]

        But it also seems to at least somewhat contradict one phenomenon I noted. Certain programming tasks require so much concentration that I must have utter peace. I really don't think that these programming tasks exercise every single one of my brain's "intelligences" so I don't see how total lack of distraction is advantageous there when using this theory of "distracting your other intelligences".

        Oh, I certainly wouldn't claim it's a perfect model. I think anything that can be expressed in less than a large tome is unlikely to be anything more than a napkin-sketch analogy to what really goes on in the ol' noggin.

        For me, though, it seems like the "bribing parts of my brain to shaddup and lemme alone" model fits better how it feels like I deal with situations than the "aim for a specific level of overall stimulation" model. Of course, you could write my model of my mind in a very small part of my mind (rather by necessity :), so it's very incomplete even there. And that says even less about its applicability to other people, since I've noticed a time or two that they kinda aren't quite like me.

        Perhaps one way in that model of looking at the total-concentration situation is that the parts of my mind that are involved are working so hard and so loudly that they drown out attempts by other parts to demand their own satisfaction.

[reply]

In Section Meditations