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purplerabbits comments on Irrational hardware vs. rational software - Less Wrong Discussion
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Yes. The obvious one to me is that it is totally irrational of me to want to eat pile of sweets that I know from previous experience will make me feel bad about myself ten minutes after eating it and which I rationally don't need nutritionally. I can make myself not do it, but to make myself not want to is like trying to not see an optical illusion...
In my experience, there's lots of ways to make myself not want to eat those sweets.
For example, I can get out of the house and go for a brisk walk, or better yet go to the gym and work out. IME, while I'm exercising I rarely find myself craving food of any sort unless I'm genuinely hungry.
Or I can make myself a large portion of something else to eat, and eat it until I'm stuffed. IME, I don't want to eat sweets when I'm actively full.
Or I can go to sleep. IME, I don't want to eat sweets while I'm sleeping.
Or I can douse the sweets with urine. IME, I don't want to eat sweets doused in urine.
Or many other possibilities.
The problem is I don't want to do any of those things, either.
Which is a remarkable coincidence, when I stop to think about it.
In fact, a neutral observer might conclude that I want to want to eat the sweets.
Wants are like pains: sometimes they're useful information that something should be attended to, and sometimes they're irrelevant distractions because there are more important things to do, and just have to be endured and otherwise ignored.