pjeby comments on Would Your Real Preferences Please Stand Up? - Less Wrong

42 Post author: Yvain 08 August 2009 10:57PM

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Comment author: pjeby 10 August 2009 11:58:38AM 1 point [-]

Isn't that what anti-akrasia does though? If I like coffee but dislike some effect of coffee and I selfmodify into some who at least doesn't drink coffee, and maybe doesn't like it anymore, then I think I've lost something for something else, but not things in an easy to parse subgoal-supergoal relationship.

The wonderful thing about the brain is that if what you get out of something is actually important to you, you probably won't succeed in getting rid of it for long, or will find some other way to get whatever you got out of it before.

(That's also the really terrible thing about the brain, since that same principle is also where akrasia and "meta" akrasia come from!)