It’s not that complicated. It’s simply this: action is not an abstraction. The idea, as proposed, is abstract. To make it concrete, you would have to actually pick something, or at least figure out what process or criteria you would use to determine what to pick. You’d also need to know how you would record it, track it, etc. etc.
That’s a useful model to describe things with but I do not believe it is that simple at all. We can break things down and consider only the parts that are most useful for personal development but the fact remains that our instincts have emerged from a from a whole heap of competing priorities that we have adapted to evolutionarily, culturally and personally. Some of these processes are easily tracable and explained while others are not.
This stuff is all “near” thinking, and you’re not doing it, which leaves this whole matter in the “far” system by default… where nothing is going to happen.
True enough and that may well be all we need to know for the purposes of personally moving ourselves through to action. Meanwhile, if we are simply fascinated with how we, as a species act and wonder why we collectively act as we do or how we can expect a tribe of people to act in certain situations then there are correlations to uncover, causes to deduce, ‘just so’ traps to avoid and curiosities to be satisfied!
In order for it to actually count as akrasia, you’d have to first have DONE some of the near-system thinking needed to make it a concrete possibility for action. THEN, if you still resisted, it might be for reasons along the lines of what you mentioned… but in that case, it would not be by some complex string of reasoning, but because of a single, cached emotional response of shame (or a related status-lowering emotion).
I assert that akrasia can occur around the act of moving things from far to near. What I’ve noticed throughout your posts here and on your own site is that you’ve made it core priority in your own development to focus on moving from far thinking to near thinking rather than just throwing willpower at far thinking and hoping something good happens. I played around with some of the simple visualisation techniques you advocated and they do seem to be remarkably effective at fostering that ‘far-->near’ transition. That is, they do if you can get the ‘visualisation’ into the near system!
As for complex strings of reasoning… well, it’s true. There isn’t really a ‘demon’ species by the name ‘akrasia’ and said demons do not really whisper complex thoughts into my ear! In fact, much of that process does not even occur as thoughts! Rather, the other source of complex optimisation handles it. Sustained statistical pressure over many generations of selection. What we are left with are a balance of primitive drives and in some cases the groundwork for some ‘intuitive leaps’ and ‘gut feelings’. Unfortunately, when that ‘balance’ doesn’t quite fit our current circumstances akrasia comes and bites us in the ass. At least, that’s what it’d do if was a demon.
That’s a useful model to describe things with but I do not believe it is that simple at all. We can break things down and consider only the parts that are most useful for personal development but the fact remains that our instincts have emerged from a from a whole heap of competing priorities that we have adapted to evolutionarily, culturally and personally. Some of these processes are easily tracable and explained while others are not.
True enough and that may well be all we need to know for the purposes of personally moving ourselves through to action. Meanwhile, if we are simply fascinated with how we, as a species act and wonder why we collectively act as we do or how we can expect a tribe of people to act in certain situations then there are correlations to uncover, causes to deduce, ‘just so’ traps to avoid and curiosities to be satisfied!
I assert that akrasia can occur around the act of moving things from far to near. What I’ve noticed throughout your posts here and on your own site is that you’ve made it core priority in your own development to focus on moving from far thinking to near thinking rather than just throwing willpower at far thinking and hoping something good happens. I played around with some of the simple visualisation techniques you advocated and they do seem to be remarkably effective at fostering that ‘far-->near’ transition. That is, they do if you can get the ‘visualisation’ into the near system!
As for complex strings of reasoning… well, it’s true. There isn’t really a ‘demon’ species by the name ‘akrasia’ and said demons do not really whisper complex thoughts into my ear! In fact, much of that process does not even occur as thoughts! Rather, the other source of complex optimisation handles it. Sustained statistical pressure over many generations of selection. What we are left with are a balance of primitive drives and in some cases the groundwork for some ‘intuitive leaps’ and ‘gut feelings’. Unfortunately, when that ‘balance’ doesn’t quite fit our current circumstances akrasia comes and bites us in the ass. At least, that’s what it’d do if was a demon.