An apology in advance

[Angrboda]

I apologize in advance if I am uncharacteristically snarky or irritable over the next few weeks.

I quit smoking tobacco on January 30th - it's been 5 days since my last fix of nicotine. Some may remember that I had quit back at the end of 2012, but it didn't take - I made the mistake of thinking I could have a cigarette or two occasionally. Yeah, right.

I've quit many times. Har har.

I know it's a joke, but just remember that if you don't succeed, you can always try again. There's a saying that the measure of someone is not how many times they fall, but how many times they pick themselves up again. If you find yourself back smoking. Don't get down on yourself, just get back and quit again. I lost count of how many times I quit, but now I'm successfully quit for over 4 years.

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I recently read an article that posits that its difficult to temper current behavior based on long term effects, whether health realted or saving for retirement, because we consider our future self as someone else.

Found it...
http://nautil.us/issue/9/time/why-we-procrastinate

Parfit’s view was controversial even among philosophers. But psychologists are beginning to understand that it may accurately describe our attitudes towards our own decision-making: It turns out that we see our future selves as strangers. Though we will inevitably share their fates, the people we will become in a decade, quarter century, or more, are unknown to us.

Thank you. That gives me a lot to think about. Theory of consciousness is probably my main object, but theory of self is an interesting sidelight. I recently, a few months back, came to the conclusion that we have multiple "selves," each being called upon when we think in different domains. Thus the self we think about when thinking sexually is different than the one we think about when we consider our history, and so on. Your article adds some depth to that in terms of possible explanations for the results concerning future selves. Off the top of my head, this resonates with the work on "theory of mind" such as the work done by Jesse Bering, that perhaps when we think of our future selves, we are actually using the beliefs about other minds circuitry, unlike thinking about ourselves otherwise. That would explain why the pattern of brain activity is what it is. If I remember correctly, the medial PFC is known to have specific roles, but I forget what they are.

Anyway, thanks for a fascinating article.