patrissimo comments on Silver Chairs, Paternalism, and Akrasia - Less Wrong

36 Post author: dclayh 09 April 2009 09:24PM

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Comment author: Yvain 09 April 2009 11:44:04PM 12 points [-]

This idea has internal relevance as well. You could easily consider, for instance, the self introspecting at home who wants to lose weight and the self in a restaurant who wants to order cheesecake as two sides of a Silver Chair**. And I think that view is more helpful than just calling it "akrasia", because it presents the situation as two aspects of your personality which happen to want different things, instead of some "weakness" which is interfering with your "true will". Then instead of castigating yourself for weakness of will, you merely think "I suppose my desire for cheesecake was stronger than I anticipated. When I return to a state where my desire to lose weight is dominant, I shall have to make stricter plans."

IAWYC, but I have trouble with this particular example. Quite often when I do eat that piece of cheesecake, I'm thinking "Oh no, I hate myself, I really shouldn't be doing this". On the other hand, I have no such feelings when the diet-self wins out over the dessert-self. That suggests that there is some fundamental asymmetry, and not just two different but equal selves involved.

Comment author: patrissimo 29 May 2009 12:11:15AM 0 points [-]

Yeah, me too. There is a consistent asymmetry between the two sides of the Chair for me. The long-term goal is usually what I want to want to do, the short-term pleasure is usually what I want to do and want to not want to do. I think evbio explanations of adaptations maladapted for a world with different pleasure availability and a higher discount rate, where the long view is right and the short view is wrong, make a lot more sense than trying to treat the two sides symmetrically.

That said, there are certainly situations where the argument applies. When I wake up hungover, I may curse my previous night's partying, but as I'm only experiencing the downside at that moment it is not always clear to me whether I will, in a day, wish to have gotten drunk or not. But when I eat sugar, or read LW instead of working, I am usually wishing I was not doing it even while doing it, let alone days or weeks later.

Comment author: dclayh 29 May 2009 06:59:40PM 0 points [-]

I certainly agree that metawanting is involved in this phenomenon; that's part of why I requested more discussion on the topic (which Alicorn is attempting to do).