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pjeby comments on The Benefits of Rationality? - Less Wrong
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Rationality has its limits. We all know that daily exercise is good for us, and that it's something we should be doing. It's pretty clearly the "rational" choice. But can rationality actually get us to exercise every day? Is there some further bias we can eliminate that will enable us to drag our asses to the gym even when we're feeling completely exhausted? I doubt it -- there's just nothing much more that rationality can do for us in that department. A related (and rhetorical) question: are fat people fat because they're rationally deficient in some sense? We need to be careful not to downplay the extremely powerful and seemingly ineradicable influences of emotion and subjective experience (urges, fatigue, impulses, etc.) in our day-to-day decision-making.
Yes, several. Unfortunately, the exact list is usually different from one person to the next. Here are a few I've had to get rid of:
This is less than a third of the full list, it's just the ones that come to mind right off... and I'm not really done yet, either. I lost 27 pounds last year, and expect to do a similar amount this year, but my actual habit of exercising is still pretty erratic, due to another bias which I only just eliminated. (Still too soon to tell what impact it's going to have.)
Illuminating list, thanks. It suggests a beautiful analogy between overcoming biases and removing muscle tensions you didn't feel before - a quest that becomes second nature to actors and opera singers, for example.