= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
lionhearted comments on Activation Costs - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (41)
Hmm, actually, I wonder if you could do a self-assessed survey of "how hard" something seems to be to start doing. It'd face all the problems of self-assessment, but maybe you'd come out with some interesting data. Then you could track some related variables - how competent a person feels at it, identity-related, how often they've been doing it recently, etc. Might be able to come up with some interesting data.
Indeed. This was just a starting point. Also, I was going more for practical instrumental value than for epistemic, but I think there'd be value in expanding. Good comment, cheers.
I should note that I do like and use this as a metaphor in casual conversation, mostly as a way to ask my spouse or friend if they'd like to add motivation in some way to get me over the hump to start doing something I think benefits us both.
However, I tend to think of it as a shallow similarity, and I'm hesitant to try to draw deeper inferences from chemistry into motivation theory. I don't know if the anti-akrasia tactics being mentioned by many comments here are reducing the activation energy, adding energy to cause the reaction, or providing an alternate reaction path like a catalyst. I don't even know how to measure it so that I can determine which of these (if any) are in play.