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brazil84 comments on [LINK] Lectures on Self-Control and the myth of Willpower - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (14)
I agree with the idea that you want to organize your life so that you control your behavior with the minimal amount of mental exertion, but I think it would be helpful to define the term "willpower" precisely to help flesh out Professor Levy's argument. Does he offer a definition at some point?
I think effortful self-control would be one. Probably around the middle of the second lecture he offers a better one as he clearly sets apartment measures of self-control and measures of willpower. Unfortunately I can't remember well enough but it goes along the lines of effortful self-control, the simple and direct resistance to temptation. Looking and smelling the chocolate cake but not eating would take willpower, while freezing the cake so it always takes a couple of hours between deciding to eat and being able to eat it would be self-control as he defines.
Right, there seems to be a time factor involved. "Willpower" in this sense seems to mean resisting temptation in the heat of the moment with the temptation immediately available.
But here's a question: Suppose that you know you will be at an office function tomorrow and some tempting food will be served. So you decide in advance that you will not have any. If you've ever tried this, you will see it's a good deal easier to resist temptation if you think about it in advance and mentally prepare yourself. Does this count as "willpower"?
I would say "yes" with a caveat, which is that willpower seems to be more effective if it's exercised in advance. Or perhaps the brain generates a certain amount of willpower per unit time and planning allows you to bring more willpower to bear on a temptation.
I am not sure how much that counts as willpower. Willpower, often, has to do with the ability to revert preference reversal caused by hyperbolic discounting. When both the rewards are far away, we use a more abstract, rational, far-mode or system 2 reasoning. You have rationally evaluated both options (eating vs. not eating the cake) and decided not to eat. Also, I would suspect that if you merely decide this one day before and do nothing about it, you will eat the cake with more or less the same probability if you haven't decided. However, if you decide not to eat but take measures to not eat the cake, for instance, telling your co-worker you will not eat it, then it might be more effective and count as willpower.
Well it's just a matter of semantics; what is the best way to define "willpower" for purposes of discussion?
I highly disagree with this based on self-experimentation and general observations.