Much has to do with short-term pleasure vs. short-term flow and long-term satisfaction. Both wise old people and happiness studies tell us that if we do the instinctually easy things, even though they are sometimes pleasurable and the pull to do them feels strong, we will later feel regret at the way we have lived our life, and indeed at the time may not even feel happy.
Whereas if we do things that take some effort to start, that are based on research indicating they will make us happy, and that are in service of our goals, both wise old people (who have tried various strategies) and some happiness research suggest that we will end up happier.
Yes, effort matters, but our internal/instinctual effort/reward calibrator is totally whacked, especially when long time periods are involved. And it screws up things that were in the evolutionary environment (food, sex) because the modern environment is different (caloric abundance, pictures of 1 in a million hot women everywhere while the normal hunter-gatherer would only see 1 in 100 hotness), and it screws up things that weren’t because it isn’t tuned for them (no idea what TV gets interpreted as, but whatever it is, it is highly addictive but doesn’t lead to short or long-term happiness).
So if we want pleasure, we need to override the hell out of this miserable instinct—ie learn to direct our attention consciously.
The fact that you will regret a choice does not imply that the choice is irrational, since the way our regret works is itselfirrational.
If we accept Eliezer’s position, we’d probably take all of these things—pleasure, non-effort, non-regret, happiness, etc. - and make them components of our utility functions. But I have no idea how we are supposed to weigh these things against each other. How do you know that your consciously chosen trade-off is the right one? How do you even know that it’s an improvement over what your subconscious/instinct/intuition tends to choose?
How do you know that your consciously chosen trade-off is the right one? How do you even know that it’s an improvement over what your subconscious/instinct/intuition tends to choose?
Much has to do with short-term pleasure vs. short-term flow and long-term satisfaction. Both wise old people and happiness studies tell us that if we do the instinctually easy things, even though they are sometimes pleasurable and the pull to do them feels strong, we will later feel regret at the way we have lived our life, and indeed at the time may not even feel happy.
Whereas if we do things that take some effort to start, that are based on research indicating they will make us happy, and that are in service of our goals, both wise old people (who have tried various strategies) and some happiness research suggest that we will end up happier.
Yes, effort matters, but our internal/instinctual effort/reward calibrator is totally whacked, especially when long time periods are involved. And it screws up things that were in the evolutionary environment (food, sex) because the modern environment is different (caloric abundance, pictures of 1 in a million hot women everywhere while the normal hunter-gatherer would only see 1 in 100 hotness), and it screws up things that weren’t because it isn’t tuned for them (no idea what TV gets interpreted as, but whatever it is, it is highly addictive but doesn’t lead to short or long-term happiness).
So if we want pleasure, we need to override the hell out of this miserable instinct—ie learn to direct our attention consciously.
The fact that you will regret a choice does not imply that the choice is irrational, since the way our regret works is itself irrational.
If we accept Eliezer’s position, we’d probably take all of these things—pleasure, non-effort, non-regret, happiness, etc. - and make them components of our utility functions. But I have no idea how we are supposed to weigh these things against each other. How do you know that your consciously chosen trade-off is the right one? How do you even know that it’s an improvement over what your subconscious/instinct/intuition tends to choose?
In short … how do you be less wrong?