= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
pjeby comments on Share Your Anti-Akrasia Tricks - 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 (117)
I read these tricks for avoiding procrastination and I find myself terrified at the idea of trying them at a gut level, because what if they work? What if I actually find myself playing fewer videogames and surfing the internet less? That doesn't actually sound better, now that I have to seriously consider the possibility of changing this state of affairs.
Based on this revelation, I have to say I am coming around to the point of view that a lot of what we call "akrasia" is just us not wanting to admit, to others or to ourselves, what our actual desires are, so we make up more socially acceptable desires and then when we pursue our actual desires instead we blame akrasia.
Yep - akrasia is anosognosia of the will. That is, a comfortable explanation for why we do things, when we actually have no real idea why we do them.
That's why the only stable, life-enhancing anti-akrasia strategies are those that either include ways to satisfy all your existing desires, or that directly modify those existing desires. ("Unschedule"-type ideas fall into the former category, mindhacking techniques the latter.)
One simple way to partially satisfy existing desires are just to affirm them as part of your volition. Literally tell the agents that are those desires that you don't intend to defect on them if they cooperate with you by using your ability to execute long-term efforts to stomp them out without giving them due consideration whatever that turns out, upon careful and caring reflection, to be.
Well, that's a bit more anthropomorphic than necessary. More to the point, it continues the dissociation frame where you are disidentifying yourself from those desires. They are your desires, they don't belong to some sort of independent agent in your skin. If you don't take ownership of them, then you're not going to be in control of them, either.
del
Not my area of specialty, really. People here have posted several, and have linked to explanations of Neil Fiore's concept. To the extent that I work with the "satisfy all desires" mode, I merely help people learn to find out what their desires are, and to find more fulfilling ways of satisfying them.