I think you’re making this a little more complicated than necessary. Akrasia (ie, dynamic inconsistency) is a result of one self being unduly influenced by immediate consequences. Like Bob overweighting the deliciousness of the cake and underweighting the health consequences when the deliciousness is staring him in the face. The multiple selves don’t need to discuss and compromise—the cake-captivated self is just wrong and the self deciding from a distance is right (or, you know, less wrong). So the saner self should use a commitment device to tie the hands of the recalcitrant future self. I just wrote an article arguing this—http://messymatters.com/akrasia—based on a previous LessWrong post, http://lesswrong.com/lw/am/how_a_pathological_procrastinor_can_lose_weight/ .
So in a sense I agree, the two selves need to interact. Just that I think that interaction should take exactly one form: a commitment device whereby the current self constrains the future self.
I think you’re making this a little more complicated than necessary. Akrasia (ie, dynamic inconsistency) is a result of one self being unduly influenced by immediate consequences. Like Bob overweighting the deliciousness of the cake and underweighting the health consequences when the deliciousness is staring him in the face. The multiple selves don’t need to discuss and compromise—the cake-captivated self is just wrong and the self deciding from a distance is right (or, you know, less wrong). So the saner self should use a commitment device to tie the hands of the recalcitrant future self. I just wrote an article arguing this—http://messymatters.com/akrasia—based on a previous LessWrong post, http://lesswrong.com/lw/am/how_a_pathological_procrastinor_can_lose_weight/ .
So in a sense I agree, the two selves need to interact. Just that I think that interaction should take exactly one form: a commitment device whereby the current self constrains the future self.