we end up with a brain that only does what we think we really want when evolutionarily prudent
Do we have a good understanding of when this is the case and why? Is there a unifying theory of when our opinions are at odds with our decisions?
Since you assume this behavior is partly beneficial, or at the least was beneficial in the ancestral environment, I think we ought to fully understand this question before deciding (as this post implicitly does) that we’d be better off without akrasia entirely and should fight it anywhere it rears its head. Clearly akrasia is harmful sometimes, but is it always harmful, and can we effectively separate the cases where it is harmful from those where it is beneficial? (Effectively wrt. whatever techniques we might use against akrasia.)
Especially since if we somehow magically gained real desire-based control over our actions, our inexperience in living that way might lead to a lot of mistakes at first. It’s easy enough to think of examples where we shouldn’t immediately act on our desires, but assuming we can handle these more obvious cases, do we know what else the neural mechanisms of akrasia are responsible for?
If Omega were to offer you complete effortless conscious control over all your decisions and actions, as an irrevokable change, would you accept without knowing the answer to the above questions? What if it was PJEby offering an amazing new technique that’s worked for 50% of those who tried it and didn’t affect the other 50% in any way?
Of course most or all anti-akrasia techniques being proposed are revokable. But when people propose any kind of changes to my subconscious decision making procedures, which is to say my rationality (or lack of it), I get scared about a small chance of ending up worse off than I started. Hence my desire for a deeper understanding before trying to change things. More than likely someone’ll point me at a few books that I should read before wildly speculating—I would be grateful for the pointer.
To the best of my knowledge, no, no one has made a systematic study this, probably largely because so much of it falls into the realm of issues tackled by “productivity experts” and other gurus, hence discussing it academically seems to be unpopular because it feels like it’s not prestigious enough. But maybe I’m wrong and I just have never, ever seen any of this stuff for some strange reason.
Do we have a good understanding of when this is the case and why? Is there a unifying theory of when our opinions are at odds with our decisions?
Since you assume this behavior is partly beneficial, or at the least was beneficial in the ancestral environment, I think we ought to fully understand this question before deciding (as this post implicitly does) that we’d be better off without akrasia entirely and should fight it anywhere it rears its head. Clearly akrasia is harmful sometimes, but is it always harmful, and can we effectively separate the cases where it is harmful from those where it is beneficial? (Effectively wrt. whatever techniques we might use against akrasia.)
Especially since if we somehow magically gained real desire-based control over our actions, our inexperience in living that way might lead to a lot of mistakes at first. It’s easy enough to think of examples where we shouldn’t immediately act on our desires, but assuming we can handle these more obvious cases, do we know what else the neural mechanisms of akrasia are responsible for?
If Omega were to offer you complete effortless conscious control over all your decisions and actions, as an irrevokable change, would you accept without knowing the answer to the above questions? What if it was PJEby offering an amazing new technique that’s worked for 50% of those who tried it and didn’t affect the other 50% in any way?
Of course most or all anti-akrasia techniques being proposed are revokable. But when people propose any kind of changes to my subconscious decision making procedures, which is to say my rationality (or lack of it), I get scared about a small chance of ending up worse off than I started. Hence my desire for a deeper understanding before trying to change things. More than likely someone’ll point me at a few books that I should read before wildly speculating—I would be grateful for the pointer.
To the best of my knowledge, no, no one has made a systematic study this, probably largely because so much of it falls into the realm of issues tackled by “productivity experts” and other gurus, hence discussing it academically seems to be unpopular because it feels like it’s not prestigious enough. But maybe I’m wrong and I just have never, ever seen any of this stuff for some strange reason.