I think you overstate the extent to which one’s ego dystonic desires don’t try to steer the universe. If I want heroin, I’m not going to limit myself to previously reinforced means of acquiring heroin, I’ll come up with creative new heroin acquisition strategies.
If I wanted peace on earth, I would not be willing to press a button that would eliminate my desire for peace on earth. But if I “wanted” heroin, I would be willing to press a button that would eliminate my desire for heroin, and then consider the problem solved.
How’s this for an anecdote: I hate how I tend to procrastinate, but when I read about anti-procrastination techniques here and elsewhere, I shy away from trying them, out of fear they might actually work.
I want at some level to dick around on the internet rather than do work, and so I avoid shaping reality such that I do work rather than dick around on the internet
That kind of seems to be a red herring, though, in the absence of such buttons. It’s an empirical matter and one that is worth paying close attention to, but it seems to me that for a large number of people the ego, the super-ego, the pre-frontal cortex, and the many shards of Azathoth are all different and difficult to differentiate. I know that I internally use the notion “I [egosyntonicly and upon reflection] want to do X” (“I desire taking action X or set of actions X”, “We, the spaciotemporal coalition of mind fragments who are currently reflecting, want to do X”) when I at least partially mean “I want to signal virtue Y”, “I want to be seen as a person who does things like X”, “I am afraid of being seen as a person who doesn’t do X”, “I am afraid of being seen as a person who doesn’t possess virtue Y”, “I am afraid of being seen as someone who doesn’t believe virtue Y is desirable”, “I am afraid of not doing X”, “I want to believe that I want to do X”, “I am afraid of the consequences of not believing that I want to do X”, et cetera ad nauseum. (Same for “I want to be (adjective)”, “I want to be a (adjectival noun)”, “I want to possess (concrete or abstract noun)”, et cetera.)
ETA: (I use “am afraid of” where perhaps I should use “find aversive”, the latter being more general and more accurate. Fear is a similar but narrower phenomenon, I think, more Near and less Far than the most common kinds of aversion.)
The point being that each of those interpretations of my “want” emphasizes a mechanistically and possibly neuroanatomically different source of attraction and/or aversion, the conglomeration of which is difficult to break down into pieces and thus difficult to analyze to determine the ‘biggest’ causal factors therein. It is unclear to me whether or not the Pareto principle applies to the analysis of the sources of egosyntonic aversion/attraction, and it is also unclear if empirical introspection is enough to truthfully identify the biggest causal factor in the event that the Pareto principle does in fact apply.
EATA: I remember thinking that a modernized and skillfully interpreted version of Jungian psychology would be useful for doing this kind of introspection.
I think you overstate the extent to which one’s ego dystonic desires don’t try to steer the universe. If I want heroin, I’m not going to limit myself to previously reinforced means of acquiring heroin, I’ll come up with creative new heroin acquisition strategies.
If I wanted peace on earth, I would not be willing to press a button that would eliminate my desire for peace on earth. But if I “wanted” heroin, I would be willing to press a button that would eliminate my desire for heroin, and then consider the problem solved.
How’s this for an anecdote: I hate how I tend to procrastinate, but when I read about anti-procrastination techniques here and elsewhere, I shy away from trying them, out of fear they might actually work.
Can you give us at least your best guess as to why you find that frightening?
I want at some level to dick around on the internet rather than do work, and so I avoid shaping reality such that I do work rather than dick around on the internet
Yes, I get the same thing.
That kind of seems to be a red herring, though, in the absence of such buttons. It’s an empirical matter and one that is worth paying close attention to, but it seems to me that for a large number of people the ego, the super-ego, the pre-frontal cortex, and the many shards of Azathoth are all different and difficult to differentiate. I know that I internally use the notion “I [egosyntonicly and upon reflection] want to do X” (“I desire taking action X or set of actions X”, “We, the spaciotemporal coalition of mind fragments who are currently reflecting, want to do X”) when I at least partially mean “I want to signal virtue Y”, “I want to be seen as a person who does things like X”, “I am afraid of being seen as a person who doesn’t do X”, “I am afraid of being seen as a person who doesn’t possess virtue Y”, “I am afraid of being seen as someone who doesn’t believe virtue Y is desirable”, “I am afraid of not doing X”, “I want to believe that I want to do X”, “I am afraid of the consequences of not believing that I want to do X”, et cetera ad nauseum. (Same for “I want to be (adjective)”, “I want to be a (adjectival noun)”, “I want to possess (concrete or abstract noun)”, et cetera.)
ETA: (I use “am afraid of” where perhaps I should use “find aversive”, the latter being more general and more accurate. Fear is a similar but narrower phenomenon, I think, more Near and less Far than the most common kinds of aversion.)
The point being that each of those interpretations of my “want” emphasizes a mechanistically and possibly neuroanatomically different source of attraction and/or aversion, the conglomeration of which is difficult to break down into pieces and thus difficult to analyze to determine the ‘biggest’ causal factors therein. It is unclear to me whether or not the Pareto principle applies to the analysis of the sources of egosyntonic aversion/attraction, and it is also unclear if empirical introspection is enough to truthfully identify the biggest causal factor in the event that the Pareto principle does in fact apply.
EATA: I remember thinking that a modernized and skillfully interpreted version of Jungian psychology would be useful for doing this kind of introspection.
You’re right; I concede that my model is too simplistic. I’ll have to think about it further.