Yeah, “perfectly rational” implies consistency over time, which is the whole question you’re struggling with.
if you keep adding strict prohibitions onto your future self, you are limiting all your future options
Right, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? You don’t trust your future self to be consistent with your present beliefs, so you constrain it. Note that there are current-self tactics based on the same principle: you might not trust parts of your decision apparatus to make food choices, for instance, that other parts of you prefer, and therefore don’t keep junk food at hand.
Most older people I know (including myself), recognize that their younger selves were jerks, or at least confused about a lot of things. They often regret commitments made previously (and often agree with them, but in those cases the commitment isn’t binding, as they like it anyway).
I’d recommend not framing this as a negotiation or trade (acausal trade is close, but is pretty suspect in itself). Your past self(ves) DO NOT EXIST anymore, and can’t judge you. Your current self will be dead when your future self is making choices. Instead, frame it as love, respect, and understanding. You want your future self to be happy and satisfied, and your current choices impact that. You want your current choices to honor those parts of your past self(ves) you remember fondly. This can be extended to the expectation that your future self will want to act in accordance with a mosty-consistent self-image that aligns in big ways with it’s past (your current) self.
This framing is consistent with most of your concrete suggestions—those are reinforcing the importance (to you currently) of these values, and the memory of this exploration, documentation, and thinking about why you currently care about future actions will inform your future self’s values. It’s not a contract, it’s persuasion.
I’d recommend not framing this as a negotiation or trade (acausal trade is close, but is pretty suspect in itself). Your past self(ves) DO NOT EXIST anymore, and can’t judge you. Your current self will be dead when your future self is making choices. Instead, frame it as love, respect, and understanding. You want your future self to be happy and satisfied, and your current choices impact that. You want your current choices to honor those parts of your past self(ves) you remember fondly. This can be extended to the expectation that your future self will want to act in accordance with a mosty-consistent self-image that aligns in big ways with it’s past (your current) self.
Yep, this is what I had in mind when I wrote this:
Even if we bite all these bullets, there is still something weird to me about the contractual nature of it all. This is not some stranger I’m trying to make a deal with, it’s myself. There should be a gentler, nicer, way to achieve this same goal.
and
Going along with the “gentler” reasoning, it should want to do it because it has camaraderie with its past self. It should want its past self to be happy and it knows that to make it happy, it should take its preferences into account.
Yeah, “perfectly rational” implies consistency over time, which is the whole question you’re struggling with.
Right, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? You don’t trust your future self to be consistent with your present beliefs, so you constrain it. Note that there are current-self tactics based on the same principle: you might not trust parts of your decision apparatus to make food choices, for instance, that other parts of you prefer, and therefore don’t keep junk food at hand.
Most older people I know (including myself), recognize that their younger selves were jerks, or at least confused about a lot of things. They often regret commitments made previously (and often agree with them, but in those cases the commitment isn’t binding, as they like it anyway).
I’d recommend not framing this as a negotiation or trade (acausal trade is close, but is pretty suspect in itself). Your past self(ves) DO NOT EXIST anymore, and can’t judge you. Your current self will be dead when your future self is making choices. Instead, frame it as love, respect, and understanding. You want your future self to be happy and satisfied, and your current choices impact that. You want your current choices to honor those parts of your past self(ves) you remember fondly. This can be extended to the expectation that your future self will want to act in accordance with a mosty-consistent self-image that aligns in big ways with it’s past (your current) self.
This framing is consistent with most of your concrete suggestions—those are reinforcing the importance (to you currently) of these values, and the memory of this exploration, documentation, and thinking about why you currently care about future actions will inform your future self’s values. It’s not a contract, it’s persuasion.
Yep, this is what I had in mind when I wrote this:
and
Thanks for expanding on this :)