This idea has internal relevance as well. You could easily consider, for instance, the self introspecting at home who wants to lose weight and the self in a restaurant who wants to order cheesecake as two sides of a Silver Chair**. And I think that view is more helpful than just calling it “akrasia”, because it presents the situation as two aspects of your personality which happen to want different things, instead of some “weakness” which is interfering with your “true will”. Then instead of castigating yourself for weakness of will, you merely think “I suppose my desire for cheesecake was stronger than I anticipated. When I return to a state where my desire to lose weight is dominant, I shall have to make stricter plans.”
IAWYC, but I have trouble with this particular example. Quite often when I do eat that piece of cheesecake, I’m thinking “Oh no, I hate myself, I really shouldn’t be doing this”. On the other hand, I have no such feelings when the diet-self wins out over the dessert-self. That suggests that there is some fundamental asymmetry, and not just two different but equal selves involved.
Perhaps this is a better example: I’ve noticed that the ability to draw well is extremely useful, and I used to say that I wanted to be able to draw. Lots of people say the same thing. Well, yes; I want to be able to draw. But after thinking about it, I don’t want to put in the necessary effort to learn to draw. All the moments of my day that I would have to give up for many years to do so, I’m doing something that I’d rather be doing than learning to draw. The “I want to read Less Wrong” me beats the “I want to learn to draw” me.
As I was teaching myself to draw, I got immense satisfaction from every incremental improvement in my skill, no matter how small. I think this sort of childlike attitude is a necessity for teaching yourself a complex skill in the presence of distractions.
Yeah, me too. There is a consistent asymmetry between the two sides of the Chair for me. The long-term goal is usually what I want to want to do, the short-term pleasure is usually what I want to do and want to not want to do. I think evbio explanations of adaptations maladapted for a world with different pleasure availability and a higher discount rate, where the long view is right and the short view is wrong, make a lot more sense than trying to treat the two sides symmetrically.
That said, there are certainly situations where the argument applies. When I wake up hungover, I may curse my previous night’s partying, but as I’m only experiencing the downside at that moment it is not always clear to me whether I will, in a day, wish to have gotten drunk or not. But when I eat sugar, or read LW instead of working, I am usually wishing I was not doing it even while doing it, let alone days or weeks later.
I certainly agree that metawanting is involved in this phenomenon; that’s part of why I requested more discussion on the topic (which Alicorn is attempting to do).
IAWYC, but I have trouble with this particular example. Quite often when I do eat that piece of cheesecake, I’m thinking “Oh no, I hate myself, I really shouldn’t be doing this”. On the other hand, I have no such feelings when the diet-self wins out over the dessert-self. That suggests that there is some fundamental asymmetry, and not just two different but equal selves involved.
Perhaps this is a better example: I’ve noticed that the ability to draw well is extremely useful, and I used to say that I wanted to be able to draw. Lots of people say the same thing. Well, yes; I want to be able to draw. But after thinking about it, I don’t want to put in the necessary effort to learn to draw. All the moments of my day that I would have to give up for many years to do so, I’m doing something that I’d rather be doing than learning to draw. The “I want to read Less Wrong” me beats the “I want to learn to draw” me.
As I was teaching myself to draw, I got immense satisfaction from every incremental improvement in my skill, no matter how small. I think this sort of childlike attitude is a necessity for teaching yourself a complex skill in the presence of distractions.
Yeah, me too. There is a consistent asymmetry between the two sides of the Chair for me. The long-term goal is usually what I want to want to do, the short-term pleasure is usually what I want to do and want to not want to do. I think evbio explanations of adaptations maladapted for a world with different pleasure availability and a higher discount rate, where the long view is right and the short view is wrong, make a lot more sense than trying to treat the two sides symmetrically.
That said, there are certainly situations where the argument applies. When I wake up hungover, I may curse my previous night’s partying, but as I’m only experiencing the downside at that moment it is not always clear to me whether I will, in a day, wish to have gotten drunk or not. But when I eat sugar, or read LW instead of working, I am usually wishing I was not doing it even while doing it, let alone days or weeks later.
I certainly agree that metawanting is involved in this phenomenon; that’s part of why I requested more discussion on the topic (which Alicorn is attempting to do).