My new claim is that akrasia is simply irrationality in the face of immediate consequences. It’s not about willpower nor is it about a compromise between multiple selves. Your true self is the one that is deciding what to do when all the consequences are distant.
I question this. I can see how it is true in many cases- when both positive and negative consequences are distant, you can judge them in the same light. But I think the opposite is true- people often underestimate the negative consequences of something until those consequences are staring them in the face.
I mean, if someone believes “I want to be a writer” but does not believe “I want to write,” is that akrasia? Or is that just not being self-aware enough? I come down pretty strongly in the latter camp. In cases like that, I wouldn’t model procrastinatijng writing as irrationality so much as it is the id responding to the superego- “I know you’re caught up in this fantasy, but really, it’s not worth it.”
It took me, depending on how you count things, a few months to a few years for my “I don’t want to do physics” to overcome my “I want to be a physicist.” If I hadn’t been paying attention and thinking “hm, I don’t want to do this. Why don’t I want to do this?”, I could see myself wasting years trying to satisfy myself in a suboptimal way.
This is a great point. But my position is that the use of self-binding accelerates the possible discovery that your dispassionate current self is wrong about what you want. If you believe you want to be a writer but never write then you’re in fact not finding out that you hate writing! Eventually you’ll concede that your id is telling you something but you might actually be wrong. It might just be a problem of activation energy, for example.
So I still side with the long-term self. Decide what you want from a distance, commit yourself for some reasonable amount of time, then reassess. It’s the rationalist way: gather data and test hypotheses (in this case about your own preferences). Would you agree that it’s hard for the delusion to persist under that scheme?
Upon rethinking it, I decided that my original position missed the mark somewhat, because it’s not clear how “rationality” plays into an id-ego-superego model (which could either match short-term desires, decider, long-term desires, or immoral desires, decider, moral desires- the first seems more useful for this discussion).
It seems to me that rationality is not superego strengthening, but ego strengthening- and the best way to do that is to elevate whoever isn’t present at the moment. If your superego wants you to embark on some plan, consult your id before committing (and making negative consequences immediate is a great way to do that); if your id wants you to avoid some work, consult your superego before not doing it.
And so I think what you’ve written is spot on for half of the problem, and agree your scheme is good at solving that half of the problem (and gives insights about the other half).
It seems to me that rationality is not superego strengthening, but ego strengthening- and the best way to do that is to elevate whoever isn’t present at the moment. If your superego wants you to embark on some plan, consult your id before committing (and making negative consequences immediate is a great way to do that); if your id wants you to avoid some work, consult your superego before not doing it.
Thing is, I don’t think this actually happens. When I’m being productive and not procrastinating, and I try to sit back and analyze why I’m “on” that day, I might attribute it to something like “hmm, long-term desires seem to be overriding short-term desires today, clearly this is the key”. As if, for whatever reason, my short-term self was on vacation that day. My belief is that what’s happening is something much more fundamental, and something that we actually have much less control over than we think; the conditions for not-procrastinating were already in place, and I later added on justifications like, “man, I really need to listen to far mode!”. This is why, when I’m having a day where I am procrastinating, those same thoughts just don’t move me. It’s not the thought that’s actually determining your actions (“My desire to make an A in this class SHOULD BE stronger than my desire to comment on Less Wrong, so therefore I am going to override my desire to play on the internet to do work instead”), but the conditions that allow for the generation of those thoughts. I think that’s why telling myself “I don’t want to do this problem set, but I know I need to” doesn’t actually move me....until it does.
YMMV, of course. Others might be able to induce mental states of productivity by thinking really hard that they want to be productive, but I sure can’t. It’s either there or it isn’t. I can’t explain why it’s there sometimes, but if you ask me in a productive mode why I’m able to get so much more done, well, it’s just obvious that far mode is more important.
I agree with you that the issue for most people is motivation management, not time management- say I have 30-40 hours a week during which I could sit down to do homework, but I only have 10 hours a week during which if I sit down to do homework, homework will actually be completed. Once I acknowledge that, I can spend those other 20-30 hours a week doing things more valuable than looking at my homework and not doing it.
But I think we have more control over that than we think. Within this model, if I spend 20 of those hours relaxing, there might be 10 more hours I could accomplish homework during. There’s also evidence that holding that model is what makes willpower expendable. (Of course, the alternative is some people have limitless wills and other people have limited wills, and they know how they operate.)
So deciding whether you’ll listen to id or superego might not be the thoughts you verbalize, but the actions you take to prepare for that decision- the actual decision is an action, not a verbalization! If there are conditions you can place yourself in that strengthen your id or superego, knowing that and preparing accordingly is wise. dreeves’ idea of wagering is a pretty good way to place a condition on yourself that confuses your id by introducing the desire to win a wager to the situation- but obviously there are other conditions that should be sought out.
There’s also evidence that holding that model is what makes willpower expendable. (Of course, the alternative is some people have limitless wills and other people have limited wills, and they know how they operate.)
The study you cite saw an effect from manipulating theories of willpower, so self-knowledge isn’t all that’s going on.
The study you cite saw an effect from manipulating theories of willpower, so self-knowledge isn’t all that’s going on.
I mention the self-knowledge possibility because I think it possible that if there are people with limited willpower, they might be able to fake limitless willpower for a time (but not change themselves entirely). Even in that case, the obvious thing to do is pretend it’s true until it fails, not hope for it to fail.
I question this. I can see how it is true in many cases- when both positive and negative consequences are distant, you can judge them in the same light. But I think the opposite is true- people often underestimate the negative consequences of something until those consequences are staring them in the face.
I mean, if someone believes “I want to be a writer” but does not believe “I want to write,” is that akrasia? Or is that just not being self-aware enough? I come down pretty strongly in the latter camp. In cases like that, I wouldn’t model procrastinatijng writing as irrationality so much as it is the id responding to the superego- “I know you’re caught up in this fantasy, but really, it’s not worth it.”
It took me, depending on how you count things, a few months to a few years for my “I don’t want to do physics” to overcome my “I want to be a physicist.” If I hadn’t been paying attention and thinking “hm, I don’t want to do this. Why don’t I want to do this?”, I could see myself wasting years trying to satisfy myself in a suboptimal way.
This is a great point. But my position is that the use of self-binding accelerates the possible discovery that your dispassionate current self is wrong about what you want. If you believe you want to be a writer but never write then you’re in fact not finding out that you hate writing! Eventually you’ll concede that your id is telling you something but you might actually be wrong. It might just be a problem of activation energy, for example.
So I still side with the long-term self. Decide what you want from a distance, commit yourself for some reasonable amount of time, then reassess. It’s the rationalist way: gather data and test hypotheses (in this case about your own preferences). Would you agree that it’s hard for the delusion to persist under that scheme?
Upon rethinking it, I decided that my original position missed the mark somewhat, because it’s not clear how “rationality” plays into an id-ego-superego model (which could either match short-term desires, decider, long-term desires, or immoral desires, decider, moral desires- the first seems more useful for this discussion).
It seems to me that rationality is not superego strengthening, but ego strengthening- and the best way to do that is to elevate whoever isn’t present at the moment. If your superego wants you to embark on some plan, consult your id before committing (and making negative consequences immediate is a great way to do that); if your id wants you to avoid some work, consult your superego before not doing it.
And so I think what you’ve written is spot on for half of the problem, and agree your scheme is good at solving that half of the problem (and gives insights about the other half).
Thing is, I don’t think this actually happens. When I’m being productive and not procrastinating, and I try to sit back and analyze why I’m “on” that day, I might attribute it to something like “hmm, long-term desires seem to be overriding short-term desires today, clearly this is the key”. As if, for whatever reason, my short-term self was on vacation that day. My belief is that what’s happening is something much more fundamental, and something that we actually have much less control over than we think; the conditions for not-procrastinating were already in place, and I later added on justifications like, “man, I really need to listen to far mode!”. This is why, when I’m having a day where I am procrastinating, those same thoughts just don’t move me. It’s not the thought that’s actually determining your actions (“My desire to make an A in this class SHOULD BE stronger than my desire to comment on Less Wrong, so therefore I am going to override my desire to play on the internet to do work instead”), but the conditions that allow for the generation of those thoughts. I think that’s why telling myself “I don’t want to do this problem set, but I know I need to” doesn’t actually move me....until it does.
YMMV, of course. Others might be able to induce mental states of productivity by thinking really hard that they want to be productive, but I sure can’t. It’s either there or it isn’t. I can’t explain why it’s there sometimes, but if you ask me in a productive mode why I’m able to get so much more done, well, it’s just obvious that far mode is more important.
This reminds me a lot of Experiential Pica.
I agree with you that the issue for most people is motivation management, not time management- say I have 30-40 hours a week during which I could sit down to do homework, but I only have 10 hours a week during which if I sit down to do homework, homework will actually be completed. Once I acknowledge that, I can spend those other 20-30 hours a week doing things more valuable than looking at my homework and not doing it.
But I think we have more control over that than we think. Within this model, if I spend 20 of those hours relaxing, there might be 10 more hours I could accomplish homework during. There’s also evidence that holding that model is what makes willpower expendable. (Of course, the alternative is some people have limitless wills and other people have limited wills, and they know how they operate.)
So deciding whether you’ll listen to id or superego might not be the thoughts you verbalize, but the actions you take to prepare for that decision- the actual decision is an action, not a verbalization! If there are conditions you can place yourself in that strengthen your id or superego, knowing that and preparing accordingly is wise. dreeves’ idea of wagering is a pretty good way to place a condition on yourself that confuses your id by introducing the desire to win a wager to the situation- but obviously there are other conditions that should be sought out.
The study you cite saw an effect from manipulating theories of willpower, so self-knowledge isn’t all that’s going on.
I mention the self-knowledge possibility because I think it possible that if there are people with limited willpower, they might be able to fake limitless willpower for a time (but not change themselves entirely). Even in that case, the obvious thing to do is pretend it’s true until it fails, not hope for it to fail.