One of my recurrent themes is how a conceptual creature can malfunction. One way, IMO, is valuing according to your categories, instead of categorizing according to your values. I see that as a valuing creature losing it’s terminal values when a means (consistency with categories), a tool toward those terminal values starts being valued too much, in a way that subverts achievement of those terminal values.
EY’s comments give me other ways to malfunction. Certainly, “What do I decide?” has the stench of a malfunctioning mind. I’m starting to get a whiff of the same from “What do I want?” That’s a tailbiting question too, and worse, it’s invoking the wrong circuits in your brain. Both questions are. They both invoke analytical circuits, where what you need to invoke are the valuing circuits.
This kind of malfunction seems a likely source for akrasia and anhedonia. When you’re good at thinking, that becomes the hammer you rely on, maybe too much, where every problem starts looking like a nail, and you start pounding away at screws and wondering why it just doesn’t seem to work.
This one leaves me with something to chew on.
One of my recurrent themes is how a conceptual creature can malfunction. One way, IMO, is valuing according to your categories, instead of categorizing according to your values. I see that as a valuing creature losing it’s terminal values when a means (consistency with categories), a tool toward those terminal values starts being valued too much, in a way that subverts achievement of those terminal values.
EY’s comments give me other ways to malfunction. Certainly, “What do I decide?” has the stench of a malfunctioning mind. I’m starting to get a whiff of the same from “What do I want?” That’s a tailbiting question too, and worse, it’s invoking the wrong circuits in your brain. Both questions are. They both invoke analytical circuits, where what you need to invoke are the valuing circuits.
This kind of malfunction seems a likely source for akrasia and anhedonia. When you’re good at thinking, that becomes the hammer you rely on, maybe too much, where every problem starts looking like a nail, and you start pounding away at screws and wondering why it just doesn’t seem to work.