In fact constructing this abstract system does not seem to convincingly help me further its purported goal
I think this is a common problem. That doesn’t mean you have to give up on having your second-order desires agree with your first-order desires. It is possible to use your abstract models to change your day-to-day behaviour, and it’s definitely possible to build a more accurate model of yourself and then use that model to make yourself do the things you endorse yourself doing (i.e. avoiding having to use willpower by making what you want to want to do the “default.”)
As for me, I’ve decided that happiness is too elusive of a goal–I’m bad at predicting what will make me happier-than-baseline, the process of explicitly pursuing happiness seems to make it harder to achieve, and the hedonic treadmill effect means that even if I did, I would have to keep working at it constantly to stay in the same place. Instead, I default to a number of proxy measures: I want to be physically fit, so I endorse myself exercising and preferably enjoying exercise; I want to have enough money to satisfy my needs; I want to finish school with good grades; I want to read interesting books; I want to have a social life; I want to be a good friend. Taken all together, these are at least the building blocks of happiness, which happens by itself unless my brain chemistry gets too wacked out.
So the normal chain of events here would just be that I argue those are still all subgoals of increasing happiness and we would go back and forth about that. But this is just arguing by definition, so I won’t continue along that line.
To the extent I understand the first paragraph in terms of what it actually says at the level of real-world experience, I have never seen evidence supporting its truth. The second paragraph seems to say what I intended the second paragraph of my previous comment to mean. So really it doesn’t seem that we disagree about anything important.
But this is just arguing by definition, so I won’t continue along that line.
Agreed. I find it practical to define my goals as all of those subgoals and not make happiness an explicit node, because it’s easy to evaluate my subgoals and measure how well I’m achieving them. But maybe you find it simpler to have only one mental construct, “happiness”, instead of lots.
The second paragraph seems to say what I intended the second paragraph of my previous comment to mean.
I guess I explicitly don’t allow myself to have abstract systems with no measurable components and/or clear practical implications–my concrete goals take up enough mental space. So my automatic reaction was “you’re doing it wrong,” but it’s possible that having an unconnected mental system doesn’t sabotage your motivation the same way it does mine. Also, “what I actually end up doing” doesn’t, to me, have to connotation of “choosing and achieving subgoals”, it has the connotation of not having goals. But it sounds like that’s not what it means to you.
I think this is a common problem. That doesn’t mean you have to give up on having your second-order desires agree with your first-order desires. It is possible to use your abstract models to change your day-to-day behaviour, and it’s definitely possible to build a more accurate model of yourself and then use that model to make yourself do the things you endorse yourself doing (i.e. avoiding having to use willpower by making what you want to want to do the “default.”)
As for me, I’ve decided that happiness is too elusive of a goal–I’m bad at predicting what will make me happier-than-baseline, the process of explicitly pursuing happiness seems to make it harder to achieve, and the hedonic treadmill effect means that even if I did, I would have to keep working at it constantly to stay in the same place. Instead, I default to a number of proxy measures: I want to be physically fit, so I endorse myself exercising and preferably enjoying exercise; I want to have enough money to satisfy my needs; I want to finish school with good grades; I want to read interesting books; I want to have a social life; I want to be a good friend. Taken all together, these are at least the building blocks of happiness, which happens by itself unless my brain chemistry gets too wacked out.
So the normal chain of events here would just be that I argue those are still all subgoals of increasing happiness and we would go back and forth about that. But this is just arguing by definition, so I won’t continue along that line.
To the extent I understand the first paragraph in terms of what it actually says at the level of real-world experience, I have never seen evidence supporting its truth. The second paragraph seems to say what I intended the second paragraph of my previous comment to mean. So really it doesn’t seem that we disagree about anything important.
Agreed. I find it practical to define my goals as all of those subgoals and not make happiness an explicit node, because it’s easy to evaluate my subgoals and measure how well I’m achieving them. But maybe you find it simpler to have only one mental construct, “happiness”, instead of lots.
I guess I explicitly don’t allow myself to have abstract systems with no measurable components and/or clear practical implications–my concrete goals take up enough mental space. So my automatic reaction was “you’re doing it wrong,” but it’s possible that having an unconnected mental system doesn’t sabotage your motivation the same way it does mine. Also, “what I actually end up doing” doesn’t, to me, have to connotation of “choosing and achieving subgoals”, it has the connotation of not having goals. But it sounds like that’s not what it means to you.