Obviously it’s possible to want multiple things and believe multiple things. My mind, at least, is best approximately as a society of sub-agents than as a single unified self. I think “System 1 vs System 2” is already too much of an approximation–my System 1 definitely isn’t unified, and even my System 2 doesn’t agree on a single set of beliefs.
Can you simultaneously want sex and not want it?
Yes, and even large amounts of luminosity haven’t made this divide go away. I used to not want sex because it was unpleasant, but want to want it because it was a way to profess love and, damn it, I wanted to do that. The not-wanting-sex happened on a more basic, less endorsed level, leading to weird mental resistance and frustration whenever I overrode it and had sex anyway because it was a thing I ought to do. I now do almost the opposite–I listen to my System 1 instincts and don’t have sex, but I’m not totally happy with this state of affairs. There’s good evidence that humans can’t change their sexual orientations, so I’ve accepted it for now, but if that status quo changed, I would have some rethinking to do, and might press a button to make it different. These are different ‘file formats’ of belief–System 2 verbal beliefs don’t automatically propagate into System 1 visceral urges–but they’re nevertheless contradictory, and years of thinking about and paying a lot of attention to the issue hasn’t allowed me to resolve that.
Another example: I want kids. By that, I mean that seeing a baby makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside; that I daydream about it; that the first thought that comes when I see or learn many things is “I’m going to teach this to my kids!” I’m also fairly sure that having kids now is not the correct thing to do. It may not be the correct thing to do for a few years. In this case, System 2 rules win out, while System 1 whispers quietly in the background that why don’t I have a baby already, and hey, you could put up with some unpleasantness and have a baby in nine months. I’m sure as hell not going to change my System 1, but there is or is not an instrumentally rational thing to do, and what my System 1 wants is only a small part of the calculation. So, if all the other variables push me in the other direction, I might end up not having kids for a long time–and having a mental contradiction for the same length of time.
Is this inevitable? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly seems to be the default, even for people who spend a lot of time thinking about their beliefs.
Thoughts on this:
Obviously it’s possible to want multiple things and believe multiple things. My mind, at least, is best approximately as a society of sub-agents than as a single unified self. I think “System 1 vs System 2” is already too much of an approximation–my System 1 definitely isn’t unified, and even my System 2 doesn’t agree on a single set of beliefs.
Yes, and even large amounts of luminosity haven’t made this divide go away. I used to not want sex because it was unpleasant, but want to want it because it was a way to profess love and, damn it, I wanted to do that. The not-wanting-sex happened on a more basic, less endorsed level, leading to weird mental resistance and frustration whenever I overrode it and had sex anyway because it was a thing I ought to do. I now do almost the opposite–I listen to my System 1 instincts and don’t have sex, but I’m not totally happy with this state of affairs. There’s good evidence that humans can’t change their sexual orientations, so I’ve accepted it for now, but if that status quo changed, I would have some rethinking to do, and might press a button to make it different. These are different ‘file formats’ of belief–System 2 verbal beliefs don’t automatically propagate into System 1 visceral urges–but they’re nevertheless contradictory, and years of thinking about and paying a lot of attention to the issue hasn’t allowed me to resolve that.
Another example: I want kids. By that, I mean that seeing a baby makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside; that I daydream about it; that the first thought that comes when I see or learn many things is “I’m going to teach this to my kids!” I’m also fairly sure that having kids now is not the correct thing to do. It may not be the correct thing to do for a few years. In this case, System 2 rules win out, while System 1 whispers quietly in the background that why don’t I have a baby already, and hey, you could put up with some unpleasantness and have a baby in nine months. I’m sure as hell not going to change my System 1, but there is or is not an instrumentally rational thing to do, and what my System 1 wants is only a small part of the calculation. So, if all the other variables push me in the other direction, I might end up not having kids for a long time–and having a mental contradiction for the same length of time.
Is this inevitable? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly seems to be the default, even for people who spend a lot of time thinking about their beliefs.