This difference between “wanting” and “intending” seems to be a pretty natural explanation for akrasia. It often seems like we intend to do things but never get around to them, but now that I have this distinction it seems to me that, phenomenologically, what’s happening is rather that I want to do something but never intend it (or lose the intention very quickly).*
This suggests that one way to combat akrasia might be to pay very close attention to one’s intentions. I think the Complice platform tries to get you to do this with daily reviews and setting intentions for the next day (and with asking you “how are you going to make that happen” for things that you’ve assigned yourself several times but haven’t done), but the real trick isn’t just to write down what you think you want to do the next day, but to, while you’re doing that, get that phenomenological feeling of intending to do it.
This also reminds me a little of Nate Soares’ Replacing Guilt series. Speculation: you can’t intend to do something unless all parts of you are on board. Thus, in order to intend to do something that you’re having akrasia about, you have to convince whatever parts of you are resisting that it’s a good idea. On the other hand, you can do something without intending to, and not just in the sense of doing it accidentally: you can spend hours surfing the internet without ever really having the intention to do that. So not all parts of you need to be on board for you to do something, only for you to intend to do it. Possible counterpoint: say you do something using willpower; you (e.g.) force yourself to sit down and study for a test. Did you intend to do that? Clearly not all parts of you were on board or you wouldn’t have had to force yourself, but it seems like using that much willpower means you must have intended to do it. Or maybe not? Maybe this “intending” feeling implies not needing to use willpower, or at least not having internal conflict about doing the thing? I’m not sure.
Also, this explanation has implications for the original akrasia debate as begun by Plato in the Protagoras. It’s been a long time since I read it, but if I remember, Plato argues that what’s happening in seeming cases of akrasia (which he thought of as “doing something that you believe is a bad option”) is not that you believe x is a bad option and do x at the same time, but rather you believe on some level, while you’re doing x, that x is a good option, and later change your belief to believe it’s a bad option and forget that you believed it was a good option. On my theory, what’s happening is that you want to do not-x, but don’t intend to do not-x, hence the feeling of conflict, because while you’re doing x you want to do not-x.
On a meta-note, thanks for including the transcript.
Edit: I thought I had added the link to the wikipedia page about akrasia, but it disappeared, so edited to re-add.
This difference between “wanting” and “intending” seems to be a pretty natural explanation for akrasia. It often seems like we intend to do things but never get around to them, but now that I have this distinction it seems to me that, phenomenologically, what’s happening is rather that I want to do something but never intend it (or lose the intention very quickly).*
This suggests that one way to combat akrasia might be to pay very close attention to one’s intentions. I think the Complice platform tries to get you to do this with daily reviews and setting intentions for the next day (and with asking you “how are you going to make that happen” for things that you’ve assigned yourself several times but haven’t done), but the real trick isn’t just to write down what you think you want to do the next day, but to, while you’re doing that, get that phenomenological feeling of intending to do it.
This also reminds me a little of Nate Soares’ Replacing Guilt series. Speculation: you can’t intend to do something unless all parts of you are on board. Thus, in order to intend to do something that you’re having akrasia about, you have to convince whatever parts of you are resisting that it’s a good idea. On the other hand, you can do something without intending to, and not just in the sense of doing it accidentally: you can spend hours surfing the internet without ever really having the intention to do that. So not all parts of you need to be on board for you to do something, only for you to intend to do it. Possible counterpoint: say you do something using willpower; you (e.g.) force yourself to sit down and study for a test. Did you intend to do that? Clearly not all parts of you were on board or you wouldn’t have had to force yourself, but it seems like using that much willpower means you must have intended to do it. Or maybe not? Maybe this “intending” feeling implies not needing to use willpower, or at least not having internal conflict about doing the thing? I’m not sure.
Also, this explanation has implications for the original akrasia debate as begun by Plato in the Protagoras. It’s been a long time since I read it, but if I remember, Plato argues that what’s happening in seeming cases of akrasia (which he thought of as “doing something that you believe is a bad option”) is not that you believe x is a bad option and do x at the same time, but rather you believe on some level, while you’re doing x, that x is a good option, and later change your belief to believe it’s a bad option and forget that you believed it was a good option. On my theory, what’s happening is that you want to do not-x, but don’t intend to do not-x, hence the feeling of conflict, because while you’re doing x you want to do not-x.
On a meta-note, thanks for including the transcript.
Edit: I thought I had added the link to the wikipedia page about akrasia, but it disappeared, so edited to re-add.