bgrah449 comments on Open Thread: December 2009 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: CannibalSmith 01 December 2009 04:25PM

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Comment author: bgrah449 01 December 2009 11:06:44PM 2 points [-]

I like the color red. When people around me wear red, it makes me happy - when they wear any other color, it makes me sad. I crunch some numbers and tell myself, "People wear red about 15% of the time, but they wear blue 40% of the time." I campaign for increasing the amount that people wear red, but my campaign fails miserably.

"It'd be great if I could like blue instead of red," I tell myself. So I start trying to get myself to like blue - I choose blue over red whenever possible, surround myself in blue, start trying to put blue in places where I experience other happinesses so I associate blue with those things, etc.

What just happened? Did a belief or a preference change?

Comment author: Alicorn 01 December 2009 11:25:45PM 8 points [-]

You acquired a second-order desire, which is a preference about preferences.