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Comment by lordleft | Hacker News Reader

The difference between a medieval monk and a smartphone-wielding modern is that the former had fewer options for dopamine-generating distractions, while we have a limitless supply in our pocket. At a certain point the monk might be so bored that a treatise by Avicenna might actually be preferable to doing nothing at all, and that is no small inducement to deep progress, the processing of emotions, and contemplation more generally.

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Funny thing about mentioning Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and "dopamine-generating distractions".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00855lt

Avicenna apparently had a very strict schedule of putting down the quill and enjoying the company of his women. So now, the fact of his genius notwithstanding, what does that do with the dopamine and distraction theorem given this man was unbelievably productive in his life?

https://historyofphilosophy.net/did-avicenna-kill-himself-ha...

I've also seen it suggested that modern tech is causing people today to be less in touch with their physical bodies and the bodies of those around them. I personally think I'm much happier and more "productive" when I have access to physical intimacy (which, as with perhaps many people today, is less often than I would prefer). Perhaps it's all related?

Add the discipline bit (which he had in spades) and I think you may have something there. I'm struggling a bit thinking of the correct word here; satisfaction and contentment come to mind, as well as un-settled mind when dissatisfied.

It all seems to boil down to the mind, and where you stand on the mind-body (none?) issue. These days I'm tending to be far more accepting of the unified view that dispenses with the duality.

The un-settled mind is prone to distraction, naturally.

My mind is definitely more focused and at peace if I have recently cuddled or had sex with a friend in the past couple of days.

> Avicenna apparently had a very strict schedule of putting down the quill and enjoying the company of his women. So now, the fact of his genius notwithstanding, what does that do with the dopamine and distraction theorem given this man was unbelievably productive in his life?

Probably not much. I forget the exact term, but when people refer to "dopamine" in the contact of distraction, they're not really talking about dopamine in general, but rather things like slot-machine-like random enforcement engagement mechanisms (which can be explicitly designed, like in social media apps, or accidentally "fall out" of new tech-enabled activities).

I would not consider a scheduled physical/social/emotional activity to be a distraction. Is eating lunch a distraction? Is sleeping a distraction? If anything, I think Avicenna supports the value of reducing distraction.

I'm not sure they're mutually exclusive categories. A friend became a monk and I've visited several times, some of the monks have and use smartphones.

Modern monks at least have almost no unstructured time, or freedom to select a new task merely because they're tired of the current one. I don't know if this is how medieval monks lived but I suspect it wasn't that different.

So I suspect boredom in its usual sense is not part of the experience, because "nothing at all" isn't an activity that they do. Almost their entire long day is specifically allocated to focused tasks. I'm sure their minds wander during prayer and attention flags during routine toil. But they have no freedom to choose something else, and so never get to do something like read a book "out of boredom."

I have been around monks and spent extended stretches of time at Orthodox Christian monasteries, and I'd like to clarify a couple of things: monks can and do get distracted and they can, indeed, just leave their cell and go outside if they want to. There is a passion called "acedia" that attacks every monk to a greater or lesser degree. Acedia is the "spirit of noonday". It's distraction. It's the desire to do anything else except whatever it is you're doing (especially prayer). It's the desire to be somewhere else or to do something else. It can take the form of gluttony, or the form of going to talk to another monk, or the form of just going for a walk instead of praying.

Also, monks are praying the whole time. All the time. They are usually repeating a short prayer in their minds while they work, while they walk, while they eat. All the time. Of course, they get distracted and their minds wander (especially the newer monks), but the aspiration is to "pray continually". They aren't just letting their minds wander around and think about whatever they want. A lot of their effort and attention goes into constantly guarding their minds against distracting thoughts and re-focusing on prayer.

Monks (Orthodox Christian monks, anyway) do, indeed, have freedom to choose something else, but the whole point of their ascetic struggle is to ignore those impulses and to stay in prayer.

I experienced one of those strict Vipassana retreat for 10 days where most of the distraction you take for granted in today's life are forbidden: no reading, no talking, no phone, no internet, no physical contact in the premises and no contact from people outside. It's the closest it can be to a life's monk. Your day is clearly structured, essentially waking up at 4am, meditating, doing some simple tasks, meditating, eating, meditating, eating, meditating, sleeping. If you play the game (which I did), you literally spend 10h/day meditating. In a sense "boredom" just becomes an experience by itself which paradoxically isn't boring anymore.

As it's been noticed here, surely monks were not distracted by the same technology and at the same scale we are distracted to in today's world. When I came back to the "real world" from this experience, I could realise how much one life's was just constantly distracted.

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