I’m not quite sure I’m parsing what you’re saying correctly. I’ll give it a try. I would say that if you are genuinely sick, making a conscious choice regarding that would often be to do what is required to recover quickly, so going to bed is quite reasonable. Other agenty things to do about sickness would be to take vitamin D or other remedies that you’ve determined will help you overthrow the cold faster. I also consider whether or not to take Dayquil or Nyquil, since even though my understanding is that they don’t actually help you get over the cold faster, they do often help with work and sleep, so I actively consider whether it is best to be more highly functioning while sick v.s. focusing on speed of recovery to make this choice.
There was a time when I had major surgery, for stage 4 endometriosis, and wanted to go to a wedding precisely a week afterward, when I was told recovery was 2-3 weeks. I was told that I probably shouldn’t fly but sometimes people recover early enough. So what I did in that case, was to focus on recovery as hard as I could for the five days after the surgery. When the nurse asked me if I wanted to go home from the hospital as soon as possible, I said that I wanted to stay right where I was for the full time I was allowed that was prepaid for my stay before having to spend the night. Why would I cause extra trauma to my body while it was in early stages of recovery, just to be in a familiar environment. Then, after the first 24hrs where I slept as much as possible but did some walking around every hour to be careful about blood clots, for the next four days I hardly got out of bed and took sleeping pills to encourage myself to stay in bed. I did this until it was time to pack, at which I got up, packed, got on a plane, and was actually recovered enough by the wedding to be able to dance!
That is an example of agentiness as I see it, because I was working within the constraints I had, and actively thinking about and doing what would cause me to recover most quickly because of my goal of making it to the wedding.
Your surgery recovery example is weird, because (as you describe it) the nurse came to you and asked you to make a choice with well-defined options (any length of time between “as soon as possible” and “as late as is paid for”) with consequences that were already salient to you. That’s more agenty than “go with whatever the nurse suggests”, but I think most of us can make choices when handed a menu.
Let me take a very stupid example. You want some bylaws written. You look up “how to write bylaws”, and notice there’s a lot to it. You estimate you’ll become able to write bylaws after 200 hours of research. The options that immediately occur to you are:
Research bylaws as much as you are physically able to. This leads to about six hours of learning about bylaws, followed by a daze where you read the same sentence over and over again for ten hours until you can drag yourself into bed, followed by a few entirely unproductive days.
Research bylaws for a couple hours each day, then walk away while you are still fresh. This requires 100 productive days, which, adding days where you have to do something more important and entirely unproductive days, represents about a year. A year later, Patri has written perfectly good bylaws and has started looking for housing and your knowledge is useless.
Chuck non-vital projects like “write bylaws” and focus entirely on becoming more productive. Ten years later, wonder why you haven’t done anything with your life. Drown your crushing sense of failure in whichever drug you determine costs the fewest QALYs.
Think until you find a better option.
Your mental fog is too heavy to decide, so you stretch and stagger into the kitchen for a drink of water. The light bulb needs changed, but your knee and balance are acting up so you save that for later. After a drink, a light snack, and a few minutes forcing yourself into motion, you manage to get yourself to shower. Afterwards, you feel able to think clearly.
I actually find examples like the surgery thing quite frequently in life—the most unusual thing about it may be the way I framed it. I notice options and possibilities and win/win scenarios for making unusual agreements where most people don’t.
With the hospital example, I think the nurse just asked me if I wanted to go home, as opposed to giving me a list of options and implications, although I do not have a recording of the conversation.
Regarding more complex examples, depends on things like opportunity cost. One of the first things I would do would be to discuss with Patri and other agents in the group. When you have multiple agents, you can optimize among everyone’s good ideas, and if you cooperate, you don’t end up with situations like case #2 where Patri and I duplicate work.
There was a time when I had major surgery, for stage 4 endometriosis, and wanted to go to a wedding precisely a week afterward, when I was told recovery was 2-3 weeks. I was told that I probably shouldn’t fly but sometimes people recover early enough. So what I did in that case, was to focus on recovery as hard as I could for the five days after the surgery. When the nurse asked me if I wanted to go home from the hospital as soon as possible, I said that I wanted to stay right where I was for the full time I was allowed that was prepaid for my stay before having to spend the night. Why would I cause extra trauma to my body while it was in early stages of recovery, just to be in a familiar environment. Then, after the first 24hrs where I slept as much as possible but did some walking around every hour to be careful about blood clots, for the next four days I hardly got out of bed and took sleeping pills to encourage myself to stay in bed. I did this until it was time to pack, at which I got up, packed, got on a plane, and was actually recovered enough by the wedding to be able to dance!
I’ve done stuff like that plenty of times. Sometimes I’ve even done the reverse (stuff myself with medicines and stuff this afternoon so that I’ll be fine for the party tonight, even if that means I’d likely be very sick tomorrow and the day after, when I wouldn’t have much to do anyway so I wouldn’t mind staying in bed that much).
I’m not quite sure I’m parsing what you’re saying correctly. I’ll give it a try. I would say that if you are genuinely sick, making a conscious choice regarding that would often be to do what is required to recover quickly, so going to bed is quite reasonable. Other agenty things to do about sickness would be to take vitamin D or other remedies that you’ve determined will help you overthrow the cold faster. I also consider whether or not to take Dayquil or Nyquil, since even though my understanding is that they don’t actually help you get over the cold faster, they do often help with work and sleep, so I actively consider whether it is best to be more highly functioning while sick v.s. focusing on speed of recovery to make this choice.
There was a time when I had major surgery, for stage 4 endometriosis, and wanted to go to a wedding precisely a week afterward, when I was told recovery was 2-3 weeks. I was told that I probably shouldn’t fly but sometimes people recover early enough. So what I did in that case, was to focus on recovery as hard as I could for the five days after the surgery. When the nurse asked me if I wanted to go home from the hospital as soon as possible, I said that I wanted to stay right where I was for the full time I was allowed that was prepaid for my stay before having to spend the night. Why would I cause extra trauma to my body while it was in early stages of recovery, just to be in a familiar environment. Then, after the first 24hrs where I slept as much as possible but did some walking around every hour to be careful about blood clots, for the next four days I hardly got out of bed and took sleeping pills to encourage myself to stay in bed. I did this until it was time to pack, at which I got up, packed, got on a plane, and was actually recovered enough by the wedding to be able to dance!
That is an example of agentiness as I see it, because I was working within the constraints I had, and actively thinking about and doing what would cause me to recover most quickly because of my goal of making it to the wedding.
This sounds like a great example of many small things that one does get better at after some training in instrumental rationality.
Your surgery recovery example is weird, because (as you describe it) the nurse came to you and asked you to make a choice with well-defined options (any length of time between “as soon as possible” and “as late as is paid for”) with consequences that were already salient to you. That’s more agenty than “go with whatever the nurse suggests”, but I think most of us can make choices when handed a menu.
Let me take a very stupid example. You want some bylaws written. You look up “how to write bylaws”, and notice there’s a lot to it. You estimate you’ll become able to write bylaws after 200 hours of research. The options that immediately occur to you are:
Research bylaws as much as you are physically able to. This leads to about six hours of learning about bylaws, followed by a daze where you read the same sentence over and over again for ten hours until you can drag yourself into bed, followed by a few entirely unproductive days.
Research bylaws for a couple hours each day, then walk away while you are still fresh. This requires 100 productive days, which, adding days where you have to do something more important and entirely unproductive days, represents about a year. A year later, Patri has written perfectly good bylaws and has started looking for housing and your knowledge is useless.
Chuck non-vital projects like “write bylaws” and focus entirely on becoming more productive. Ten years later, wonder why you haven’t done anything with your life. Drown your crushing sense of failure in whichever drug you determine costs the fewest QALYs.
Think until you find a better option.
Your mental fog is too heavy to decide, so you stretch and stagger into the kitchen for a drink of water. The light bulb needs changed, but your knee and balance are acting up so you save that for later. After a drink, a light snack, and a few minutes forcing yourself into motion, you manage to get yourself to shower. Afterwards, you feel able to think clearly.
What do you do?
I actually find examples like the surgery thing quite frequently in life—the most unusual thing about it may be the way I framed it. I notice options and possibilities and win/win scenarios for making unusual agreements where most people don’t.
With the hospital example, I think the nurse just asked me if I wanted to go home, as opposed to giving me a list of options and implications, although I do not have a recording of the conversation.
Regarding more complex examples, depends on things like opportunity cost. One of the first things I would do would be to discuss with Patri and other agents in the group. When you have multiple agents, you can optimize among everyone’s good ideas, and if you cooperate, you don’t end up with situations like case #2 where Patri and I duplicate work.
I’ve done stuff like that plenty of times. Sometimes I’ve even done the reverse (stuff myself with medicines and stuff this afternoon so that I’ll be fine for the party tonight, even if that means I’d likely be very sick tomorrow and the day after, when I wouldn’t have much to do anyway so I wouldn’t mind staying in bed that much).