Comment by justifier | Hacker News Reader

Comment by justifier | Hacker News Reader

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here is an illuminating issue with the trend of specifying interest

as a science develops it usually branches into specific categories of study

these categories and their proponents usually create language to simplify intercommunication of ideas

but the issue becomes these placeholder words can sometimes be misunderstood: two parties each agreeing on a conclusion but holding different definitions for linking jargon; or sometimes are oversimplifications of their underlying ideas that are less interesting to the science being discussed

what does neuropsychological mean?

googs will tell you: the study of the relationship between behavior, emotion, and cognition on the one hand, and brain function on the other.

wiki(o) will tell you: Neuropsychology studies the structure and function of the brain as they relate to specific psychological processes and behaviours

so what is declining? the structure of the brain?

how do you measure that? less neurons? less connections? do we know how many neurons or connections is ideal?

or is behaviour and emotion declining? how do you determine desirability of emotion and behaviour?

wiki also suggests methods of measuring this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychology#Methods_and_to... ; which include card sorting(i) and brain scans

the former suffering from what i would consider a fallacy of overfitting and the latter currently under scrutiny for overassuming(ii)

it's also a young enough field that hn's spellchecker flags neuropsychology as a misspelled word.. perhaps the spellchecker's neuropsychology has been damaged

do i care one way or the other on the short and long term damage from cannabis smoking? of course i am interested in the results but i hope in the future the language, from both sides, will become more descriptive and less inflammatory

that said, much like with alcohol use, you are intentionally poisoning yourself in order to alter your perception of shared reality.. accelerated entropy should be expected

but the more descriptive information we can form will better inform our decisions on whether the benefits outweigh the negatives

(o) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychology

(i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Card_Sorting_Test

(ii) https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/apr...

> that said, much like with alcohol use, you are intentionally poisoning yourself in order to alter your perception of shared reality.. accelerated entropy should be expected

This is an odd statement. Weed isn't exactly toxic like alcohol is. It's nearly impossible to overdose, any acute harm will be purely psychological (even though this thread is debating whether long-term harm can enter the physical realm).

Also, we do all sorts of stuff all the time to alter our perception of reality, mostly not involving substances...

I'm pretty sure it must depend on the method of consumption. Eating is probably fairly non-toxic but smoking pretty much anything produces partially oxidated hydrocarbons which aren't great for your lungs. There may be enough other chemicals in canabis that reduce the harm of combustion but it's unclear to what extent.

Actually, people have studied the effects of cannabis smoke inhalation on lungs, and the results so far so some negative effects (respiratory disease), but the effects are fairly small. There is no correlation between cannabis smoking and lung cancer, in fact, smoking it seems to have a mildly protective effect (this is still being actively debated in the literature).

Got any sources on this?

I'm finding it hard to believe smoke from cannabis combustion is anything other than terrible for your lungs.

This is the report from the National Academy of Science released this year. It's in no way "terrible".

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?Rec...

Regarding the link between marijuana and cancer, the committee found evidence that suggests smoking cannabis does not increase the risk for cancers often associated with tobacco use – such as lung and head and neck cancers. The committee also found limited evidence that cannabis use is associated with one sub-type of testicular cancer and insufficient evidence that cannabis use by a mother or father during pregnancy leads to a greater risk of cancers in the child

The evidence reviewed by the committee suggests that smoking cannabis on a regular basis is associated with more frequent chronic bronchitis episodes and worse respiratory symptoms, such as chronic cough and phlegm production, but quitting cannabis smoking is likely to reduce these conditions. The committee stated that it is unclear whether cannabis use is associated with certain respiratory diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, or worsened lung function.

Your totally right.. I misspoke, should have said 'intentionally consuming a substance'

Do you have some aversion to punctuation? Do you think it's cool not to capitalize or use paragraphs? I cannot read your post because of this.

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