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marchdown 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: marchdown 16 November 2011 03:04:25AM 0 points [-]

it might have taken a long time and a lot of conscious intervention for me to identify and stop eating junk food (or what I consider such), but it certainly no longer takes any conscious thought to reject a piece of candy. I don't think through everything bad it could do to me or anything and weigh that against how good it would taste; I simply feel a few painful bodily sensations and think, "Ew! Can't have that!"

When I began cooking and grocery shopping on my own, I've thought things through and decided that it would probably be better to mostly eat fresh vegetables, beans and, rarely, some meat. I kept at it for maybe two years, but then I moved in with different people and since I didn't have any strong reasons to stay with my old diet I began eating more junk food and sweets. I don't feel or observe any effects, ill or otherwise.

I guess I didn't make the relevant dietary knowledge truly part of myself. It might bite me back later, but right now I don't have ugh-reaction to hamburgers or candy, althrough I do have a mental model of subjective yumminess as a manifestation of adaptation-execution, and I understand that this is far from being fitness-maximizing behavior in today's environment.

Can you think of a simple way to check the territory and discover how broken and unreliable our maps have grown?