This is an interesting line of arguments, but I have a strong sense you are missing something here. I don’t believe that anyone here is claiming that akrasia is caused by acausal desires or that fighting akrasia is fighting physical reality (at the ontological level), rather that
To do something different, you’d need to adjust either the preferences or the models.
is not so easily achieved. I think your characterization is right when you say
Akrasia is merely a state where the conscious model you have of your preferences fails to match your complete, actual preferences.
and
There is nothing in the human anatomy you can point to and say, “aha, there’s akrasia”, because that is merely a label for your confusion regarding what you (as a complete organism) “want”.
because certainly akrasia isn’t being caused by some akrasia organ, but is the result of the interaction between several adaptations that are at odds with each other. Akrasia is a sort of confusion, though, where your brain seems to resolve to act or believe against what you calculate to be the best.
There’s an important distinction that you seem to be missing: the brain appears to be designed in such a way that we are able to think and decide on best courses of actions but find ourselves not actually implementing them. This isn’t some abstract argument, either; just look at the literature on heuristics and biases and you’ll see that even when people are able to sit down and reason through a situation to come to a rational action, they still don’t always act on it.
There’s an important distinction that you seem to be missing: the brain appears to be designed in such a way that we are able to think and decide on best courses of actions but find ourselves not actually implementing them.
I’m not missing that distinction; what you’re missing is that this is an indication that the conscious “decision” being made is based on incomplete information about one’s preferences.
That is, if you experience akrasia, this is an indication that your conscious reasoning is flawed. (Your “unconscious” reasoning may also be flawed or based on cached thoughts, but this does not exempt your conscious reasoning from its failure to take into account your actual preferences.)
Thus, saying we should “fight akrasia” is like saying that we should fight the “low fuel” warning light on our car, when what’s actually needed is to put gas in! The warning light is doing you a favor, so calling it bad names isn’t helping.
This is an interesting line of arguments, but I have a strong sense you are missing something here. I don’t believe that anyone here is claiming that akrasia is caused by acausal desires or that fighting akrasia is fighting physical reality (at the ontological level), rather that
is not so easily achieved. I think your characterization is right when you say
and
because certainly akrasia isn’t being caused by some akrasia organ, but is the result of the interaction between several adaptations that are at odds with each other. Akrasia is a sort of confusion, though, where your brain seems to resolve to act or believe against what you calculate to be the best.
There’s an important distinction that you seem to be missing: the brain appears to be designed in such a way that we are able to think and decide on best courses of actions but find ourselves not actually implementing them. This isn’t some abstract argument, either; just look at the literature on heuristics and biases and you’ll see that even when people are able to sit down and reason through a situation to come to a rational action, they still don’t always act on it.
I’m not missing that distinction; what you’re missing is that this is an indication that the conscious “decision” being made is based on incomplete information about one’s preferences.
That is, if you experience akrasia, this is an indication that your conscious reasoning is flawed. (Your “unconscious” reasoning may also be flawed or based on cached thoughts, but this does not exempt your conscious reasoning from its failure to take into account your actual preferences.)
Thus, saying we should “fight akrasia” is like saying that we should fight the “low fuel” warning light on our car, when what’s actually needed is to put gas in! The warning light is doing you a favor, so calling it bad names isn’t helping.