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moridinamael comments on Decision Fatigue, Rationality, and Akrasia. - Less Wrong Discussion

17 Post author: Alexandros 19 September 2011 03:37PM

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Comment author: moridinamael 19 September 2011 09:52:44PM *  16 points [-]

I had virtually the same thought while showering this morning. I was running late for an extremely important exam and found that I was sphexishly staring at nothing.

I said to my brain, "We're late. Finish showering."

My brain replied, "Hold on, I'm optimizing something unrelated to this."

"This is kind of urgent," I suggested.

"It's not very rational of you to ask me to stop thinking about this and thus risk allowing a potential cognitive error to pass unchecked," my brain said haughtily.

"I think it is instrumentally rational for us to not be late to the exam."

"Perhaps, let us consider the value of sacrificing global correctness for local instrumental rationality - "

"Shut up," I said out loud, and finished showering. But of course I continued thinking and realized how often I allow meta-optimization to take priority over actually doing things, and how it only really becomes apparent when I am frantic about a deadline. This also explains why deadlines actually do motivate me despite the fact that I hate them.