Ghatanathoah comments on To what degree do we have goals? - Less Wrong

45 Post author: Yvain 15 July 2011 11:11PM

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Comment author: Yvain 16 July 2011 08:45:13PM 1 point [-]

I agree with you about terminology. Ego syntonic vs. ego dystonic desires is probably a better way to put it.

Comment author: Ghatanathoah 01 November 2012 03:00:26PM *  0 points [-]

I think I generally agree with your points, but I'm wondering if you think that ego syntonic and ego dystonic are binary categories, or a continuum.

The later seems obviously true to me. There are some desires I have that are so ego-dystonic that I would never, ever want to act on them, like my desire to punch someone who outbid me on eBay. But there are many other desires I have that are only ego dystonic because they interfere with some even more important desire I have. For instance, my desire to read TV Tropes might be ego dystonic when I need to prepare for a job interview, but then magically become ego syntonic once I've finished the interview and need to unwind.

In fact, I think a great many of the ego-dystonic things that you describe as interfering with our real goals would stop being ego dystonic if we achieved those goals more frequently.