6 ms·

How extreme isolation warps the mind

152 points by lvevjo 12y ago

jqm 12y ago
Good article. Now I have an excuse for getting on HN from time to time while locked away in the solitary confinement of VIM.
- goldenkey 12y ago
  For a serious and meaningful article, your response is quite tasteless.
  - jqm 12y ago
    I disagree with you 100%. Some of these symptoms might appear in people who are isolated and working remotely or people who spend long stretches of time locked away and working on projects. In fact, I'll go so far as to say I am sure less severe version of these symptoms appear. I'm surprised you don't see the connection and can only assume you have not been in one of these situations or are not a programmer.
    - mr_tyzic 12y ago
      The extreme isolation described in this article bears little resemblance to "working on projects", so the connection seems spurious.
      - jqm 12y ago
        You seem to have missed the portion about "locked away". The fact is that there is a connection... isolation. And it may result in manifestation of less severe versions of the same symptoms.
        davidcbc 12y ago
        If actually you've been locked away in the way the article describes and forced to program you should probably complain to HR
        mr_tyzic 12y ago
        I think you're just making that up, and that it trivializes the real trauma the article is about.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        jqm 12y ago
        Ok, if that's what you think. Thanks for expressing your opinion. I'm sorry you feel the need to be hostile. And, I don't agree with you.
    - biot 12y ago
      This is the comment you should have made originally. Your initial comment comes across as little more than an unsuccessful attempt at a funny one-liner. Here's what pg has to say[0] about those kinds of comments: "The most dangerous form of stupid comment is not the long but mistaken argument, but the dumb joke. [...] Whatever the cause, stupid comments tend to be short. And since it's hard to write a short comment that's distinguished for the amount of information it conveys, people try to distinguish them instead by being funny." Or did you intend your initial comment to be serious? If so, perhaps you can explain how you believe that working in vim is tantamount to solitary confinement. Is someone forcing you to be alone while you use a text editor? In other words, are you being actively prevented from working alongside other people? Does using vim isolate you from other sensory input? [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
      - jqm 12y ago
        Stupid comments might tend to be short. But all short comments are not stupid. Sometimes it is possible to say much with humor in very few words. Thank you for providing a guys opinion. But I don't happen to be religious.
        biot 12y ago
        > Sometimes it is possible to say much with humor in very few words. I completely agree with that, though I disagree that you said much in your original comment (or that it was funny) which is why I think that your subsequent comment explaining what you meant would have been better to start with. Your original comment mentioned nothing about working remotely in isolation or less severe version of the symptoms, and "the solitary confinement of VIM" is a pretty absurd statement to make unless you explain what you mean.
        jqm 12y ago
        It's been interesting to watch the votes on the original comment over the past couple of hours. It has received no less than 10 votes with a fairly even split and a slight favor towards the positive. Some people apparently feel exactly what I'm talking about. Some don't. I think maybe we are seeing breakdown of people who have put in serious alone time with an editor VS those who have not. I could be wrong about this. But I don't feel the need to explain. You understand or you don't. I'm sorry if the comment caused you consternation. Please be assured this was not my intention.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - MarkPNeyer 12y ago
    insistence on being "serious" and "meaningful" is something a lot of people - myself included - find to be isolating and can induce the same problems as actually being alone. if i'm not free to express myself in a lighthearted and playful manner, if everything is filtered through the emotionally sterile mask of 'professionalism', i feel lonely. i'd suggest GP's comment is in keeping with the spirit of the findings. humor draws us together.
  - angersock 12y ago
    There were a few times in the past year where I was working odd hours and not seeing many people outside of what I was crunching on. HN was a helpful reminder that there were still other people out there.
    - jqm 12y ago
      yes, exactly. thank you.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    Humor is essential for humans to cope with stress.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      Of all the comments I've made, I can't figure out why this is the one that sits at -1. Interesting.
      - jqm 12y ago
        I can't figure it out either. There appears to be a measure of anger in the world. It's sad really.
- AimHere 12y ago
  See, this is why you should have been using emacs all along. Theological and ergonomic considerations aside, for your sanity's sake, GNU emacs comes with two IRC clients, a web browser, an email reader and a usenet reader to stave off isolation-induced hacker-madness. And in extremis, with no network connection, there's always M-x doctor. Truly, RMS thought of everything, and then put it in emacs twice, just in case.
  - softatlas 12y ago
    tmux will do just fine. My text editor should do text editing well, nothing more.
MarkPNeyer 12y ago
our legal system and much of our social culture are based upon the idea that a person is entirely responsible for the contents, structure and acuity of their own mind. this goes back to descartes, and is a prevailing theme throughout western thought. given what we now know about people and the way their minds work, i'm hoping we revisit these false beliefs. criminal recidisivm is a huge problem, and my guess is because the penitentiary model was based upon the idea that isolating someone and giving them time to think would cause them to reflect on the error of their ways. we can see now that it just warps a person's mind. i went through a long period of social isolation where my friends and even family pulled away from me because i was acting erratically. this erratic, bizzare behavior was _caused_ by feeling lonely and isolated, and further isolation made the problem worse. my guess is this is what happens to most drug addicts. they feel lonely or hurt, and find temporary comfort in drugs. their friends and family worry about them and stay away, for fear of making the problem worse and because being around unhappy people can make you unhappy. they sufferers find the drug using community accepting and welcoming - but only on a superficial level. you can light up a joint outside a bar in SF and instantly find yourself having 'new friends' who will disappear when the joint is gone. the desire for solace from pain and the longing for intimacy worsens the dependence on the drug and pushes loved ones further away. i understand why people pull away - they are afraid. i get that. but we used to fear anyone who was sick and put them in special colonies becuase we didn't understand sickness and thought it was demonic possession or evil at work. i'd suggest that the modern understanding of "psychosis as illness" is just as misinformed. we're using the best model we have of the day - when people don't work properly, they are ill - but that categorization implies that the problem lies in the person themselves, and not in the environmental conditions they find themselves in. if EVERYONE goes crazy when they're totally alone for too long, then it's not accurate to say that 'crazy' symptoms are signs of 'mental illness.' it'd be as if we diagnosed people with 'runny nose' syndrome. see more thoughts here: http://markpneyer.me/2014/04/02/the-way-we-understand-mental-health-today/ http://markpneyer.me/2014/04/02/the-way-we-understand-mental...
- nostrademons 12y ago
  Homelessness as well. I wonder if much of the mental illness that characterizes chronic homelessness is as much an effect as a cause of it, creating a vicious cycle that's really hard to escape.
UVB-76 12y ago
Wayback Machine link for those in the UK: https://web.archive.org/web/20140514231517/http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140514-how-extreme-isolation-warps-minds https://web.archive.org/web/20140514231517/http://www.bbc.co...
- dingdingdang 12y ago
  Thanks, appreciated!
- boobsbr 12y ago
  People in the UK can't read the BBC?
delluminatus 12y ago
A psychological gem was dropped in the middle of the article: People in her circumstances have their world suddenly inverted, and there is nothing in the manner of their taking – no narrative of sacrifice, or enduring for a greater good – to help them derive meaning from it. They must somehow find meaning in their predicament – or mentally detach themselves from their day-to-day reality, which is a monumental task when alone. This is the same conclusion drawn by Dr. Victor Frankl in his excellent Man's Search for Meaning. His experience in Nazi concentration camps led him to conclude that the only way to fend off complete apathy was to try to find a personal meaning in your experience. Even apparently meaningless suffering, he said, can be made meaningful depending on your response: you can maintain your human dignity in the face of overwhelming suffering, and by not forgetting yourself, you can be an affirmation of the strength of humankind.
- thom 12y ago
  These are similar to the arguments Camus makes in the Myth of Sisyphus (on the minor philosophical point of whether or not one should kill oneself).
- richardlblair 12y ago
  > you can be an affirmation of the strength of humankind. Well, that gave me goosebumps.
  - richardlblair 12y ago
    Downvotes? HAHA, HN, you make me laugh.
  - delluminatus 12y ago
    Thanks! In all seriousness, I had the same response when I read Man's Search for Meaning the first time. The first half of the book describes, in clinical detail (Frankl was a psychiatrist) the details of daily life in Auschwitz and other Nazi camps. I don't need to say that they are disturbing, but you might be surprised to hear that they're also uplifting. The book will make you cry. Not because it's sad but because it's a reminder that although humans are capable of causing great evil, we're also capable of looking that evil in the face, even through our own powerlessness, without turning away. We dish it out but we can take it, too.
johnthebeloved 12y ago
"It is not good for man to be alone." Genesis 2:18 Turns out we've known that from the start.
pastforward 12y ago
"It is not good for man to be alone." Genesis 2:18 Turns out we've known this from the start.
- optymizer 12y ago
  That's not the start.
- instakill 12y ago
  Please don't bring your fiction here.
xcntktn 12y ago
There is a prisoner in the US Federal system who has been in solitary confinement for 27 years: http://www.peteearley.com/thomas-silverstein/ http://www.peteearley.com/thomas-silverstein/ A court recently ruled that his conditions did not constitute a violation of the 8th amendment: http://solitarywatch.com/2013/09/25/federal-appeals-court-considers-tommy-silversteins-30-years-extreme-solitary-confinement/ http://solitarywatch.com/2013/09/25/federal-appeals-court-co... It is scary to think that while this article start out with an example of "almost 10,000 hours" in isolation as something horrific, here is a prisoner in the US who has been in isolation more than 20 times longer than that, and the courts have upheld this treatment as legal.
- emiliobumachar 12y ago
  As an aside, he got very good at drawing since it's all he does.
- moe 12y ago
  and the courts have upheld this treatment as legal Well, given his track record, what alternative is there?
  - thret 12y ago
    The death penalty seems merciful by comparison.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Well, they could probably turn off the lights from time to time. Night vision cameras aren't expensive compared to all of the other costs here... "Thomas Silverstein has been locked under the tightest conditions in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in total isolation since he murdered a correctional officer in 1983. The lights are kept on 24 hours a day in his cell."
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    One could certainly try graduated adjustments. Fast facts: Silverstein was imprisoned for bank robbery. While in prison he was convicted for murder of another inmate, albeit on questionable evidence. Silverstein kiled and was convicted of murder for killing another inmate who was seeking revenge for the first killing he was convicted of. He led the Aryan Nation prison gang for a time. In 1983, he was convicted for a particularly brutal murder of a prison guard. Since then he has been kept in ADX (aka Supermax) custody and had no visitors. He is seen by a prison psychiatrist once a month and otherwise only sees his guards when they deliver food. Like other supermax prisoners he occupies a cell within a containment suite, so there's no chance of him communicating with other prisoners by shouting or suchlike. Now, obviously Silverstein is all kinds of bad, but I don't buy the argument that the risk profile he presents has not changed at all in the last 31 years. It's worth bearing in mind that male criminality peaks in the late teens and then the decline steepens after age 40. Yeah, of course it's risky to grant him additional privileges, but there's a big gap between the risk that he'll attack someone in a controlled environment, and the (unacceptable) outcome of him escaping and inflicting a danger on society at large.
electromagnetic 12y ago
This is more "extreme sensory deprivation is bad" rather than "extreme isolation is bad". There is lots of evidence of extreme social isolation having minimal impact on people's mental stability over long periods. It's not that we need people, it's that we need to be able to form our own narrative. We need to know what we're doing, why and what it's getting us. Extreme isolation of small groups seems much worse, especially long term where increased rates of social deviance becomes evidenced.
- prawks 12y ago
  Any examples of isolation of small groups? Sounds like it would make a fascinating case study.
  - gregw134 12y ago
    There was a family in Russia that lived in isolation from the time of the Tsars until the 1970s. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russ...
    - soperj 12y ago
      Tsars were in control before ww1 not ww2.
      - aquadrop 12y ago
        Yes, that makes the story more fascinating. They left home during revolution and actually, youngest daughter was still living there alone up until recently (2010-2011 I think).
        soperj 12y ago
        I think you're reading the story wrong, they even talk about the Bolsheviks killing the guys brother. They would have gone into the wilderness just before WW2, years after the revolution(Based on them being there for 40 years, and being found in 78).
razvanr 12y ago
This is remarkable: "researchers have found that in darkness most people eventually adjust to a 48-hour cycle: 36 hours of activity followed by 12 hours of sleep. The reasons are still unclear."
- dasmithii 12y ago
  I'm not well-versed in modern sleep research, but our habits today are shifting drastically for the first time. Because of electricity, we're no longer bound to the sun cycle, as species of past millennia have been, and the typical day-night sleep schedule is no longer required. With alternative sleep cycles popularizing (i.e. biphasic, dymaxion, everyman), I wonder if we'll find that more efficient/healthy systems exist. It's very possible that our modern habits evolved in spite of best health, reacting to more immediate issues instead. But now, with a counter to the danger of darkness, we have an opportunity to experiment with otherwise-unrealistic cycles. But then again, the 6-10 hour blocks we're acclimated to may be so deeply engrained that our health would face consequences in any other situation.
  - enneff 12y ago
    > With alternative sleep cycles popularizing Are they really? I don't know of anyone who uses an alternate sleep cycle.
    - dasmithii 12y ago
      I suppose my statement was a bit unfounded. Having just graduated, many of my friends have begun experimenting now that school's out (and schedules are less strict). Small sample size, I admit...
septerr 12y ago
"Since then, researchers have found that in darkness most people eventually adjust to a 48-hour cycle: 36 hours of activity followed by 12 hours of sleep. The reasons are still unclear" This statement was interesting to me. I wonder if it resonates with anyone else on HN. My BF who works from home a lot can spend days/hours at home splitting his time between working (programming) and playing video games. He has said a lot of times that the normal 24 hour cycle does not work from him. That he feels his body needs a 36 hour day followed by some hours of sleep. After reading the aforementioned statement in the article, I wonder if it is because of he spends so much time indoors.
- prawks 12y ago
  One alternative take on it is that being continually engrossed with what you're doing can often stave off biological needs like food and sleep. When I was younger and would indulge in quite a lot of video games, there were nights where it would approach sunrise without feeling tired or hungry all night. Once I stopped to walk around I would feel myself get incredibly tired/hungry, but in the moment of being engrossed by an experience, it seemed to block everything out. As for darkness specifically, I wonder how active the subjects in complete darkness were, and what kind of reduction of mental activity occurs when you are not constantly processing optical information. Both would seem to me to reduce metabolism and presumably the need for sleep to some degree.
  - FLUX-YOU 12y ago
    I very quickly lose track of time when engrossed in something, especially if it's a game. Nice how that's a consistent opposite with time slowing with sensory deprivation.
    - mnw21cam 12y ago
      I think that's called just-one-more-turn syndrome.
- jafaku 12y ago
  I did something similar for a couple years, I used to sleep 8-10 hours but only 6 times a week. People kept telling me that my rotating hours were bad for my body, but I was in perfect shape, ate well, exercised, etc. Eventually I came back to "normal" because of certain obligations and human interactions, but I think I'll return to my rotating hours once I'm done with that.
richardlblair 12y ago
What's crazy is I knew a few people that had to do some time. They would try to get into solitary because they feared for their lives. I can't imagine being so afraid for your own life that you are willing to endure the torture of isolation.
takinola 12y ago
Most people will live their entire lives never having ever been truly alone. Even when you are in your house or apartment alone, you still know there are people in the neighborhood or walking down the street and we don't really appreciate how much of a comforting effect this has on us. I have only felt truly alone twice in my life. The first time was on a platform installation in the North Sea. Imagine being surrounded by all these huge machines and pipes running autonomously without a human being in sight. The second time was at the bottom of ocean in Monterrey bay when my diving team had all disappeared to go back to the boat and I found myself with just 3 feet of visibility and no one else around. Both times, I felt an impending sense of dread and panic creeping up on me. It was like being in room 101.
- kafkaesque 12y ago
  I go hiking alone. Most people think I'm crazy (for some reason I don't understand). There have been times when there was absolutely nobody. Actually, I enjoy going hiking really early (say, around 6am), because there is nobody. But I find pleasure in it. As the article says, the environment and landscape help me transcend my feeling of loneliness. On a side note, I may be a slightly different case, because I suffered some traumatic/dark experiences when I was a child. The feeling of anxiety and fear was crippling, until I found I could cope with it if I voluntarily search it out when I am feeling well. So, this feeling of hiking in the dark, being alone, and isolated helps me control and overcome my fear and traumatic experience. The only drawback is that if I don't do this every so often, including exercising, I can slip back to some depression.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - itsameta4 12y ago
    >for some reason I don't understand If anything goes wrong, there's a very high chance of you being found dead. Happened to my friend's brother.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
doxcf434 12y ago
I can't help but wonder why we come to such broad conclusions of fact about the mind, when there are plenty of data points that show there's quite a lot more to the story than "isolation is bad". If I were a serious scientist of the mind for example, I would need to include data points from India and Tibet masters in to my research, who are well known for having studied the mind and have data points showing the opposite. It strikes me as a cultural basis at best to not include those data points, how do we even considered this science really?
- touristtam 12y ago
  Agreed, the background (social and other) of the 'participant' ought to be very different.
softatlas 12y ago
Yea, to "deprivation" thesis. There's always IRC.
zokier 12y ago
This is highly tangential, but this bit in the beginning stood out to me: > That summer, the 32-year-old had been hiking with two friends in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan when they were arrested by Iranian troops after straying onto the border with Iran. I'd put "going hiking to the Iraq-Iran border-zone" to the bucket of bad ideas even in better times, and 2009 (when this seemed to happen) certainly wasn't a good time. It is just common sense to keep away from borders, especially if behind that border is Iran which is not the friendliest of nations. Double-especially if you are an American, towards which Iran is openly hostile (for good reasons I believe). You wouldn't go canoing Yalu River either, would you?
- aestra 12y ago
  Yes, it probably wasn't completely wise, but these three weren't really as naive as it may appear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_detention_of_American_hikers_by_Iran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_detention_of_Am... >At the time of their detention by Iranian troops, the three Americans were on vacation from their jobs in the region in a relatively stable, autonomous region of Iraq known as Iraqi Kurdistan. On the recommendations of locals, they hiked to see a popular local Iraqi tourist destination near the Iraq-Iran border, the Ahmed Awa waterfall. >The three American detainees have stated they were simply hikers who did not realize that they were in Iran and that they actually have lengthy backgrounds as social justice activists >They had been living and active in the Middle East, and were on holiday in Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq free from the sectarian struggle that dominates much of Iraq.[16][17][18] They had been advised of the suitability of the region for a holiday by friends who had been there and through Internet research; and were recommended the Ahmed Awa waterfall, a popular Kurdish tourist destination, by a number of local people whilst they were in Sulaymaniyah. >after straying onto the border with Iran. There is some contention that they might not have actually crossed the border.
dkarapetyan 12y ago
For some reason people separate mind matters from body matters but this separation is artificial. Just like your internal organs operate within a biological ecosystem shaped by millions of years of evolution so does the mind. The mind has both an internal and external ecosystem that it was shaped by and operates in. So just like all biological systems it goes awry when equilibria that shaped it suddenly go away.
waylandsmithers 12y ago
Unrelated, but holy crap are those some click-baity articles advertised in the sidebars.
abruzzi 12y ago
This article unfortunately elides "sensory deprivation" and "social deprivation." Which I suspect are two very different things. They may bot be difficult for most people but I suspect there are very different mechanisms in play.
- saraid216 12y ago
  They're probably related, though. Part of the reason social deprivation is harmful is probably because there are types of sensory deprivation that come with it; similarly in reverse. To really start understanding it, you'd have to break down different types and intensities of deprivation. How different is it to bed fed by a robot as opposed to being fed by a hostile guard, for instance?
simczak 12y ago
From a interview with Lama Lodru Rinpoche about the challenge of three year silent retreat: "The physical obstacles are not so difficult for people. After one week people have no problem with fewer hours of sleep. After several weeks the pain of sitting cross legged is overcome. The physical obstacles are not the problem; physical problems we can control. Mental problems are more difficult to control. It is very difficult to discipline the mind. No matter how much discipline you have, when a thought comes you have no power to stop it, unless you can employ very powerful effective techniques to cut off those thoughts. Q: Are these techniques only available to people on 3-year retreat? LLR: People outside 3-year retreat have no time to employ these techniques. First of all you have to tame your mind, make your mind soft and gentle, and then you can utilize more active techniques. Without this taming of the mind the techniques are not useful, and could even bring lots of difficulties. It is not so much that people outside 3-year retreat cannot learn or be given these techniques it is just they have no time to apply them. They have to make a living, there are lots of distractions, and this type of distracted mind is not good for the pr ofound teachings you learn in 3-year retreat. Also during 3-year retreat the teachings are given in sequence, not all at once. When one teaching is complete another is introduced."
supernova87a 12y ago
I spent 6 years in grad school, don't lecture me about the effects of isolation!
CatMtKing 12y ago
It seems like the author's confusing two concepts here. He postulates about isolation from human contact, but all his examples are for isolation from sunlight or sensory deprivation. I don't disagree that there are connections between the two, but it doesn't feel like he jumped that gap. Edit: Seems like the whole article is based on the author's book. So maybe it was taken a little out of context?
- gwern 12y ago
  The sailing articles sounded like social isolation and not sensory deprivation.
  - CatMtKing 12y ago
    True, but then he also gives examples of people that cope with social isolation just fine, suggesting that they substitute the environment instead. That sounds more like support for sensory deprivation being the cause of his claims.
rdl 12y ago
I've spent >6 months with my only human contact being over the Internet (yay, Sealand), and weeks-up-to-6 in similar settings (boats, hiding out in a villa in a foreign country, etc.). IRC-as-primary-social-contact was...interesting. But I don't think it was actually that unhealthy.
- angersock 12y ago
  Sealand? Like, cryptopunk wetdream Sealand? Do tell.
hyp0 12y ago
The adverse reactions came from sensory deprivation. For social isolation, reactions varied. Love that guy who just Gump-kept sailing.
hyp0 12y ago
> Biologists believe that human emotions evolved because they aided co-operation ... fear, anger, anxiety and sadness Mammals exhibit emotions such as fear and anger.
- crpatino 12y ago
  Humans are mammals. I do not think OP implied those emotions are unique to humans, rather the opposite is true. All species of (vertebrate) social animals evolved a similar set of emotions, in part due to shared ancestry but in part on the basis of being subject to the same environmental pressures.
  - hyp0 12y ago
    nice point! mammal territorial anger is cooperative - go away or else. it can avoid an expensive fight. fear is backing down - i'll go. this communication is a kind of cooperation. this explains the exhibition of some emotion, and argues that that's all it is. though, there are non-social emotions that are useful, eg hunger, fear of high places, enjoyment of warmth in cold weather.
dobbsbob 12y ago
A guy on Texas Polunsky Death row, Thomas Bartlett Whitaker writes often for the blog Minutes Before Six on what life is like in constant solitary. http://minutesbeforesix.blogspot.ca/2010/07/how-to-go-to-level-3-for-dummies-part-1.html http://minutesbeforesix.blogspot.ca/2010/07/how-to-go-to-lev... Had no idea extreme solitary would cause prolonged vertigo
zoner 12y ago
It's still ridiculous that BBC does not allow UK visitors to see their american (web) content. An other reason to not pay for the TV license.
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
I have a deep and lingering suspicion that humans are a "weak hive mind" species. If we use the metaphor that the human brain is a computer, and that human communication is networking... this means that the "you" is software. In such circumstances, why would we expect that software to run on one and only one computer node in the network? Do you know of many software applications that do that? If this were true though, what would happen when all the other nodes become disconnected? The remaining node is probably going to malfunction...
blueskin_ 12y ago
For those in the UK who can't see it: http://archive.today/HLzWo http://archive.today/HLzWo

152 points by lvevjo 12y ago

jqm 12y ago

Good article. Now I have an excuse for getting on HN from time to time while locked away in the solitary confinement of VIM.

goldenkey 12y ago
For a serious and meaningful article, your response is quite tasteless.
- jqm 12y ago
  I disagree with you 100%. Some of these symptoms might appear in people who are isolated and working remotely or people who spend long stretches of time locked away and working on projects. In fact, I'll go so far as to say I am sure less severe version of these symptoms appear. I'm surprised you don't see the connection and can only assume you have not been in one of these situations or are not a programmer.
  - mr_tyzic 12y ago
    The extreme isolation described in this article bears little resemblance to "working on projects", so the connection seems spurious.
    - jqm 12y ago
      You seem to have missed the portion about "locked away". The fact is that there is a connection... isolation. And it may result in manifestation of less severe versions of the same symptoms.
      - davidcbc 12y ago
        If actually you've been locked away in the way the article describes and forced to program you should probably complain to HR
      - mr_tyzic 12y ago
        I think you're just making that up, and that it trivializes the real trauma the article is about.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        jqm 12y ago
        Ok, if that's what you think. Thanks for expressing your opinion. I'm sorry you feel the need to be hostile. And, I don't agree with you.
  - biot 12y ago
    This is the comment you should have made originally. Your initial comment comes across as little more than an unsuccessful attempt at a funny one-liner. Here's what pg has to say[0] about those kinds of comments: "The most dangerous form of stupid comment is not the long but mistaken argument, but the dumb joke. [...] Whatever the cause, stupid comments tend to be short. And since it's hard to write a short comment that's distinguished for the amount of information it conveys, people try to distinguish them instead by being funny." Or did you intend your initial comment to be serious? If so, perhaps you can explain how you believe that working in vim is tantamount to solitary confinement. Is someone forcing you to be alone while you use a text editor? In other words, are you being actively prevented from working alongside other people? Does using vim isolate you from other sensory input? [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
    - jqm 12y ago
      Stupid comments might tend to be short. But all short comments are not stupid. Sometimes it is possible to say much with humor in very few words. Thank you for providing a guys opinion. But I don't happen to be religious.
      - biot 12y ago
        > Sometimes it is possible to say much with humor in very few words. I completely agree with that, though I disagree that you said much in your original comment (or that it was funny) which is why I think that your subsequent comment explaining what you meant would have been better to start with. Your original comment mentioned nothing about working remotely in isolation or less severe version of the symptoms, and "the solitary confinement of VIM" is a pretty absurd statement to make unless you explain what you mean.
        jqm 12y ago
        It's been interesting to watch the votes on the original comment over the past couple of hours. It has received no less than 10 votes with a fairly even split and a slight favor towards the positive. Some people apparently feel exactly what I'm talking about. Some don't. I think maybe we are seeing breakdown of people who have put in serious alone time with an editor VS those who have not. I could be wrong about this. But I don't feel the need to explain. You understand or you don't. I'm sorry if the comment caused you consternation. Please be assured this was not my intention.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- MarkPNeyer 12y ago
  insistence on being "serious" and "meaningful" is something a lot of people - myself included - find to be isolating and can induce the same problems as actually being alone. if i'm not free to express myself in a lighthearted and playful manner, if everything is filtered through the emotionally sterile mask of 'professionalism', i feel lonely. i'd suggest GP's comment is in keeping with the spirit of the findings. humor draws us together.
- angersock 12y ago
  There were a few times in the past year where I was working odd hours and not seeing many people outside of what I was crunching on. HN was a helpful reminder that there were still other people out there.
  - jqm 12y ago
    yes, exactly. thank you.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  Humor is essential for humans to cope with stress.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    Of all the comments I've made, I can't figure out why this is the one that sits at -1. Interesting.
    - jqm 12y ago
      I can't figure it out either. There appears to be a measure of anger in the world. It's sad really.
AimHere 12y ago
See, this is why you should have been using emacs all along. Theological and ergonomic considerations aside, for your sanity's sake, GNU emacs comes with two IRC clients, a web browser, an email reader and a usenet reader to stave off isolation-induced hacker-madness. And in extremis, with no network connection, there's always M-x doctor. Truly, RMS thought of everything, and then put it in emacs twice, just in case.
- softatlas 12y ago
  tmux will do just fine. My text editor should do text editing well, nothing more.

MarkPNeyer 12y ago

our legal system and much of our social culture are based upon the idea that a person is entirely responsible for the contents, structure and acuity of their own mind. this goes back to descartes, and is a prevailing theme throughout western thought. given what we now know about people and the way their minds work, i'm hoping we revisit these false beliefs. criminal recidisivm is a huge problem, and my guess is because the penitentiary model was based upon the idea that isolating someone and giving them time to think would cause them to reflect on the error of their ways. we can see now that it just warps a person's mind. i went through a long period of social isolation where my friends and even family pulled away from me because i was acting erratically. this erratic, bizzare behavior was _caused_ by feeling lonely and isolated, and further isolation made the problem worse. my guess is this is what happens to most drug addicts. they feel lonely or hurt, and find temporary comfort in drugs. their friends and family worry about them and stay away, for fear of making the problem worse and because being around unhappy people can make you unhappy. they sufferers find the drug using community accepting and welcoming - but only on a superficial level. you can light up a joint outside a bar in SF and instantly find yourself having 'new friends' who will disappear when the joint is gone. the desire for solace from pain and the longing for intimacy worsens the dependence on the drug and pushes loved ones further away. i understand why people pull away - they are afraid. i get that. but we used to fear anyone who was sick and put them in special colonies becuase we didn't understand sickness and thought it was demonic possession or evil at work. i'd suggest that the modern understanding of "psychosis as illness" is just as misinformed. we're using the best model we have of the day - when people don't work properly, they are ill - but that categorization implies that the problem lies in the person themselves, and not in the environmental conditions they find themselves in. if EVERYONE goes crazy when they're totally alone for too long, then it's not accurate to say that 'crazy' symptoms are signs of 'mental illness.' it'd be as if we diagnosed people with 'runny nose' syndrome. see more thoughts here: http://markpneyer.me/2014/04/02/the-way-we-understand-mental-health-today/ http://markpneyer.me/2014/04/02/the-way-we-understand-mental...

nostrademons 12y ago
Homelessness as well. I wonder if much of the mental illness that characterizes chronic homelessness is as much an effect as a cause of it, creating a vicious cycle that's really hard to escape.

UVB-76 12y ago

Wayback Machine link for those in the UK: https://web.archive.org/web/20140514231517/http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140514-how-extreme-isolation-warps-minds https://web.archive.org/web/20140514231517/http://www.bbc.co...

dingdingdang 12y ago
Thanks, appreciated!
boobsbr 12y ago
People in the UK can't read the BBC?

delluminatus 12y ago

A psychological gem was dropped in the middle of the article: People in her circumstances have their world suddenly inverted, and there is nothing in the manner of their taking – no narrative of sacrifice, or enduring for a greater good – to help them derive meaning from it. They must somehow find meaning in their predicament – or mentally detach themselves from their day-to-day reality, which is a monumental task when alone. This is the same conclusion drawn by Dr. Victor Frankl in his excellent Man's Search for Meaning. His experience in Nazi concentration camps led him to conclude that the only way to fend off complete apathy was to try to find a personal meaning in your experience. Even apparently meaningless suffering, he said, can be made meaningful depending on your response: you can maintain your human dignity in the face of overwhelming suffering, and by not forgetting yourself, you can be an affirmation of the strength of humankind.

thom 12y ago
These are similar to the arguments Camus makes in the Myth of Sisyphus (on the minor philosophical point of whether or not one should kill oneself).
richardlblair 12y ago
> you can be an affirmation of the strength of humankind. Well, that gave me goosebumps.
- richardlblair 12y ago
  Downvotes? HAHA, HN, you make me laugh.
- delluminatus 12y ago
  Thanks! In all seriousness, I had the same response when I read Man's Search for Meaning the first time. The first half of the book describes, in clinical detail (Frankl was a psychiatrist) the details of daily life in Auschwitz and other Nazi camps. I don't need to say that they are disturbing, but you might be surprised to hear that they're also uplifting. The book will make you cry. Not because it's sad but because it's a reminder that although humans are capable of causing great evil, we're also capable of looking that evil in the face, even through our own powerlessness, without turning away. We dish it out but we can take it, too.

johnthebeloved 12y ago

"It is not good for man to be alone." Genesis 2:18 Turns out we've known that from the start.

pastforward 12y ago

"It is not good for man to be alone." Genesis 2:18 Turns out we've known this from the start.

optymizer 12y ago
That's not the start.
instakill 12y ago
Please don't bring your fiction here.

xcntktn 12y ago

There is a prisoner in the US Federal system who has been in solitary confinement for 27 years: http://www.peteearley.com/thomas-silverstein/ http://www.peteearley.com/thomas-silverstein/ A court recently ruled that his conditions did not constitute a violation of the 8th amendment: http://solitarywatch.com/2013/09/25/federal-appeals-court-considers-tommy-silversteins-30-years-extreme-solitary-confinement/ http://solitarywatch.com/2013/09/25/federal-appeals-court-co... It is scary to think that while this article start out with an example of "almost 10,000 hours" in isolation as something horrific, here is a prisoner in the US who has been in isolation more than 20 times longer than that, and the courts have upheld this treatment as legal.

emiliobumachar 12y ago
As an aside, he got very good at drawing since it's all he does.
moe 12y ago
and the courts have upheld this treatment as legal Well, given his track record, what alternative is there?
- thret 12y ago
  The death penalty seems merciful by comparison.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Well, they could probably turn off the lights from time to time. Night vision cameras aren't expensive compared to all of the other costs here... "Thomas Silverstein has been locked under the tightest conditions in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in total isolation since he murdered a correctional officer in 1983. The lights are kept on 24 hours a day in his cell."
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  One could certainly try graduated adjustments. Fast facts: Silverstein was imprisoned for bank robbery. While in prison he was convicted for murder of another inmate, albeit on questionable evidence. Silverstein kiled and was convicted of murder for killing another inmate who was seeking revenge for the first killing he was convicted of. He led the Aryan Nation prison gang for a time. In 1983, he was convicted for a particularly brutal murder of a prison guard. Since then he has been kept in ADX (aka Supermax) custody and had no visitors. He is seen by a prison psychiatrist once a month and otherwise only sees his guards when they deliver food. Like other supermax prisoners he occupies a cell within a containment suite, so there's no chance of him communicating with other prisoners by shouting or suchlike. Now, obviously Silverstein is all kinds of bad, but I don't buy the argument that the risk profile he presents has not changed at all in the last 31 years. It's worth bearing in mind that male criminality peaks in the late teens and then the decline steepens after age 40. Yeah, of course it's risky to grant him additional privileges, but there's a big gap between the risk that he'll attack someone in a controlled environment, and the (unacceptable) outcome of him escaping and inflicting a danger on society at large.

electromagnetic 12y ago

This is more "extreme sensory deprivation is bad" rather than "extreme isolation is bad". There is lots of evidence of extreme social isolation having minimal impact on people's mental stability over long periods. It's not that we need people, it's that we need to be able to form our own narrative. We need to know what we're doing, why and what it's getting us. Extreme isolation of small groups seems much worse, especially long term where increased rates of social deviance becomes evidenced.

prawks 12y ago
Any examples of isolation of small groups? Sounds like it would make a fascinating case study.
- gregw134 12y ago
  There was a family in Russia that lived in isolation from the time of the Tsars until the 1970s. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russ...
  - soperj 12y ago
    Tsars were in control before ww1 not ww2.
    - aquadrop 12y ago
      Yes, that makes the story more fascinating. They left home during revolution and actually, youngest daughter was still living there alone up until recently (2010-2011 I think).
      - soperj 12y ago
        I think you're reading the story wrong, they even talk about the Bolsheviks killing the guys brother. They would have gone into the wilderness just before WW2, years after the revolution(Based on them being there for 40 years, and being found in 78).

razvanr 12y ago

This is remarkable: "researchers have found that in darkness most people eventually adjust to a 48-hour cycle: 36 hours of activity followed by 12 hours of sleep. The reasons are still unclear."

dasmithii 12y ago
I'm not well-versed in modern sleep research, but our habits today are shifting drastically for the first time. Because of electricity, we're no longer bound to the sun cycle, as species of past millennia have been, and the typical day-night sleep schedule is no longer required. With alternative sleep cycles popularizing (i.e. biphasic, dymaxion, everyman), I wonder if we'll find that more efficient/healthy systems exist. It's very possible that our modern habits evolved in spite of best health, reacting to more immediate issues instead. But now, with a counter to the danger of darkness, we have an opportunity to experiment with otherwise-unrealistic cycles. But then again, the 6-10 hour blocks we're acclimated to may be so deeply engrained that our health would face consequences in any other situation.
- enneff 12y ago
  > With alternative sleep cycles popularizing Are they really? I don't know of anyone who uses an alternate sleep cycle.
  - dasmithii 12y ago
    I suppose my statement was a bit unfounded. Having just graduated, many of my friends have begun experimenting now that school's out (and schedules are less strict). Small sample size, I admit...

septerr 12y ago

"Since then, researchers have found that in darkness most people eventually adjust to a 48-hour cycle: 36 hours of activity followed by 12 hours of sleep. The reasons are still unclear" This statement was interesting to me. I wonder if it resonates with anyone else on HN. My BF who works from home a lot can spend days/hours at home splitting his time between working (programming) and playing video games. He has said a lot of times that the normal 24 hour cycle does not work from him. That he feels his body needs a 36 hour day followed by some hours of sleep. After reading the aforementioned statement in the article, I wonder if it is because of he spends so much time indoors.

prawks 12y ago
One alternative take on it is that being continually engrossed with what you're doing can often stave off biological needs like food and sleep. When I was younger and would indulge in quite a lot of video games, there were nights where it would approach sunrise without feeling tired or hungry all night. Once I stopped to walk around I would feel myself get incredibly tired/hungry, but in the moment of being engrossed by an experience, it seemed to block everything out. As for darkness specifically, I wonder how active the subjects in complete darkness were, and what kind of reduction of mental activity occurs when you are not constantly processing optical information. Both would seem to me to reduce metabolism and presumably the need for sleep to some degree.
- FLUX-YOU 12y ago
  I very quickly lose track of time when engrossed in something, especially if it's a game. Nice how that's a consistent opposite with time slowing with sensory deprivation.
  - mnw21cam 12y ago
    I think that's called just-one-more-turn syndrome.
jafaku 12y ago
I did something similar for a couple years, I used to sleep 8-10 hours but only 6 times a week. People kept telling me that my rotating hours were bad for my body, but I was in perfect shape, ate well, exercised, etc. Eventually I came back to "normal" because of certain obligations and human interactions, but I think I'll return to my rotating hours once I'm done with that.

richardlblair 12y ago

What's crazy is I knew a few people that had to do some time. They would try to get into solitary because they feared for their lives. I can't imagine being so afraid for your own life that you are willing to endure the torture of isolation.

takinola 12y ago

Most people will live their entire lives never having ever been truly alone. Even when you are in your house or apartment alone, you still know there are people in the neighborhood or walking down the street and we don't really appreciate how much of a comforting effect this has on us. I have only felt truly alone twice in my life. The first time was on a platform installation in the North Sea. Imagine being surrounded by all these huge machines and pipes running autonomously without a human being in sight. The second time was at the bottom of ocean in Monterrey bay when my diving team had all disappeared to go back to the boat and I found myself with just 3 feet of visibility and no one else around. Both times, I felt an impending sense of dread and panic creeping up on me. It was like being in room 101.

kafkaesque 12y ago
I go hiking alone. Most people think I'm crazy (for some reason I don't understand). There have been times when there was absolutely nobody. Actually, I enjoy going hiking really early (say, around 6am), because there is nobody. But I find pleasure in it. As the article says, the environment and landscape help me transcend my feeling of loneliness. On a side note, I may be a slightly different case, because I suffered some traumatic/dark experiences when I was a child. The feeling of anxiety and fear was crippling, until I found I could cope with it if I voluntarily search it out when I am feeling well. So, this feeling of hiking in the dark, being alone, and isolated helps me control and overcome my fear and traumatic experience. The only drawback is that if I don't do this every so often, including exercising, I can slip back to some depression.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- itsameta4 12y ago
  >for some reason I don't understand If anything goes wrong, there's a very high chance of you being found dead. Happened to my friend's brother.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

doxcf434 12y ago

I can't help but wonder why we come to such broad conclusions of fact about the mind, when there are plenty of data points that show there's quite a lot more to the story than "isolation is bad". If I were a serious scientist of the mind for example, I would need to include data points from India and Tibet masters in to my research, who are well known for having studied the mind and have data points showing the opposite. It strikes me as a cultural basis at best to not include those data points, how do we even considered this science really?

touristtam 12y ago
Agreed, the background (social and other) of the 'participant' ought to be very different.

softatlas 12y ago

Yea, to "deprivation" thesis. There's always IRC.

zokier 12y ago

This is highly tangential, but this bit in the beginning stood out to me: > That summer, the 32-year-old had been hiking with two friends in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan when they were arrested by Iranian troops after straying onto the border with Iran. I'd put "going hiking to the Iraq-Iran border-zone" to the bucket of bad ideas even in better times, and 2009 (when this seemed to happen) certainly wasn't a good time. It is just common sense to keep away from borders, especially if behind that border is Iran which is not the friendliest of nations. Double-especially if you are an American, towards which Iran is openly hostile (for good reasons I believe). You wouldn't go canoing Yalu River either, would you?

aestra 12y ago
Yes, it probably wasn't completely wise, but these three weren't really as naive as it may appear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_detention_of_American_hikers_by_Iran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_detention_of_Am... >At the time of their detention by Iranian troops, the three Americans were on vacation from their jobs in the region in a relatively stable, autonomous region of Iraq known as Iraqi Kurdistan. On the recommendations of locals, they hiked to see a popular local Iraqi tourist destination near the Iraq-Iran border, the Ahmed Awa waterfall. >The three American detainees have stated they were simply hikers who did not realize that they were in Iran and that they actually have lengthy backgrounds as social justice activists >They had been living and active in the Middle East, and were on holiday in Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq free from the sectarian struggle that dominates much of Iraq.[16][17][18] They had been advised of the suitability of the region for a holiday by friends who had been there and through Internet research; and were recommended the Ahmed Awa waterfall, a popular Kurdish tourist destination, by a number of local people whilst they were in Sulaymaniyah. >after straying onto the border with Iran. There is some contention that they might not have actually crossed the border.

dkarapetyan 12y ago

For some reason people separate mind matters from body matters but this separation is artificial. Just like your internal organs operate within a biological ecosystem shaped by millions of years of evolution so does the mind. The mind has both an internal and external ecosystem that it was shaped by and operates in. So just like all biological systems it goes awry when equilibria that shaped it suddenly go away.

waylandsmithers 12y ago

Unrelated, but holy crap are those some click-baity articles advertised in the sidebars.

abruzzi 12y ago

This article unfortunately elides "sensory deprivation" and "social deprivation." Which I suspect are two very different things. They may bot be difficult for most people but I suspect there are very different mechanisms in play.

saraid216 12y ago
They're probably related, though. Part of the reason social deprivation is harmful is probably because there are types of sensory deprivation that come with it; similarly in reverse. To really start understanding it, you'd have to break down different types and intensities of deprivation. How different is it to bed fed by a robot as opposed to being fed by a hostile guard, for instance?

simczak 12y ago

From a interview with Lama Lodru Rinpoche about the challenge of three year silent retreat: "The physical obstacles are not so difficult for people. After one week people have no problem with fewer hours of sleep. After several weeks the pain of sitting cross legged is overcome. The physical obstacles are not the problem; physical problems we can control. Mental problems are more difficult to control. It is very difficult to discipline the mind. No matter how much discipline you have, when a thought comes you have no power to stop it, unless you can employ very powerful effective techniques to cut off those thoughts. Q: Are these techniques only available to people on 3-year retreat? LLR: People outside 3-year retreat have no time to employ these techniques. First of all you have to tame your mind, make your mind soft and gentle, and then you can utilize more active techniques. Without this taming of the mind the techniques are not useful, and could even bring lots of difficulties. It is not so much that people outside 3-year retreat cannot learn or be given these techniques it is just they have no time to apply them. They have to make a living, there are lots of distractions, and this type of distracted mind is not good for the pr ofound teachings you learn in 3-year retreat. Also during 3-year retreat the teachings are given in sequence, not all at once. When one teaching is complete another is introduced."

supernova87a 12y ago

I spent 6 years in grad school, don't lecture me about the effects of isolation!

CatMtKing 12y ago

It seems like the author's confusing two concepts here. He postulates about isolation from human contact, but all his examples are for isolation from sunlight or sensory deprivation. I don't disagree that there are connections between the two, but it doesn't feel like he jumped that gap. Edit: Seems like the whole article is based on the author's book. So maybe it was taken a little out of context?

gwern 12y ago
The sailing articles sounded like social isolation and not sensory deprivation.
- CatMtKing 12y ago
  True, but then he also gives examples of people that cope with social isolation just fine, suggesting that they substitute the environment instead. That sounds more like support for sensory deprivation being the cause of his claims.

rdl 12y ago

I've spent >6 months with my only human contact being over the Internet (yay, Sealand), and weeks-up-to-6 in similar settings (boats, hiding out in a villa in a foreign country, etc.). IRC-as-primary-social-contact was...interesting. But I don't think it was actually that unhealthy.

angersock 12y ago
Sealand? Like, cryptopunk wetdream Sealand? Do tell.

hyp0 12y ago

The adverse reactions came from sensory deprivation. For social isolation, reactions varied. Love that guy who just Gump-kept sailing.

hyp0 12y ago

> Biologists believe that human emotions evolved because they aided co-operation ... fear, anger, anxiety and sadness Mammals exhibit emotions such as fear and anger.

crpatino 12y ago
Humans are mammals. I do not think OP implied those emotions are unique to humans, rather the opposite is true. All species of (vertebrate) social animals evolved a similar set of emotions, in part due to shared ancestry but in part on the basis of being subject to the same environmental pressures.
- hyp0 12y ago
  nice point! mammal territorial anger is cooperative - go away or else. it can avoid an expensive fight. fear is backing down - i'll go. this communication is a kind of cooperation. this explains the exhibition of some emotion, and argues that that's all it is. though, there are non-social emotions that are useful, eg hunger, fear of high places, enjoyment of warmth in cold weather.

dobbsbob 12y ago

A guy on Texas Polunsky Death row, Thomas Bartlett Whitaker writes often for the blog Minutes Before Six on what life is like in constant solitary. http://minutesbeforesix.blogspot.ca/2010/07/how-to-go-to-level-3-for-dummies-part-1.html http://minutesbeforesix.blogspot.ca/2010/07/how-to-go-to-lev... Had no idea extreme solitary would cause prolonged vertigo

zoner 12y ago

It's still ridiculous that BBC does not allow UK visitors to see their american (web) content. An other reason to not pay for the TV license.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

I have a deep and lingering suspicion that humans are a "weak hive mind" species. If we use the metaphor that the human brain is a computer, and that human communication is networking... this means that the "you" is software. In such circumstances, why would we expect that software to run on one and only one computer node in the network? Do you know of many software applications that do that? If this were true though, what would happen when all the other nodes become disconnected? The remaining node is probably going to malfunction...

blueskin_ 12y ago

For those in the UK who can't see it: http://archive.today/HLzWo http://archive.today/HLzWo