All of Nerissa's Comments + Replies
I think part of the problem with resolving dynamic inconsistencies is it is human nature to reward bad behavior more than good. Consider as an analogy how the medical systems in most developed countries handle pathological behaviors. Suppose you went to your doctor and told them you ate a low calorie healthy diet, exercised regularly, practiced safe sex and had a good handle on your stress. As a result you were pretty healthy. Your reward from your doctor and your medical insurance company would be NOTHING.
Now suppose you smoked heavily so had COPD, ate ...
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The reward for staying healthy is health. The rewards for unhealth are trash. Show of hands: how many people reading this find the unhealth lifestyle that you describe attractive? How many repulsive? 1 vote here for "repulsive".
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That's a dangerous (and personally I think incorrect) argument Nerissa if taken to its logical extremes.
Whether being a lazy freeloader is indeed the logical choice as you claim depends on exactly what kind of 'rewards' you're looking for from your life. If all you want is medical attention and welfare support, then maybe it's true, although I'd expect that most people would prefer to exchange the medical attention for health, and the welfare support (presumably equivalent to just scraping by) for a more comfortable, while still easily obtainable, income source
An excellent article Academian; like others have noted, what you describe sounds a lot like the idea of an 'inner balance' - being aware of your differing motivations/desires and attempting to form some kind of peace between them.
My guess is the perineuronal net makes akrasia common. Since the perineuronal net is poorly expressed in our conscious identity center (see wiki article below) changing our identity may be a good way to overcome akrasia.
My hypothesis is much of our behavior and lack of behavior is identity dependent with our identity a function of subconscious elements stabilized by perineuronal nets and conscious elements not so well stabilized. A first stab at lowering akrasia would be to consciously change our identity. There are various ways of doing this with the bas... (read more)