I have 100 dollars in my pocket which i have intended to use to purchase a brand new bycicle in a couple days when the one i want goes on sale. It comes with ribbons, a basket and flashers! Oooo eee! However, walking down the road i run into the most attractive prostitute i have ever seen, and tells me that for 100 bucks i can do whatever i want to her.
My question is. Do i owe my future self anything inthat i should save the 100 bucks for my brand spankin new bike? Why should i care how happy i am 30 minuets from now if i am not currently satisfied at hte moment? That person 30 minuets from now seems alien to me and i would contend is NOT me and thus does not deserve much of my attention.
You’re not going to get much of a bike for $100. And if all the prostitute wants is $100, I wouldn’t cosy-up to her wearing anything less than a yellow moon-suit. But get the bike anyway; you’ll get a better cardio-workout in the long-run.
Our every act affects our future self. At a bare minimum, we ought to treat our future self with no less moral deference than we’d treat anyone else, including the prostitute. Better yet, is to care for ourself as someone we love. In my case, it shakes-out to choosing the bicycle - or for $100, maybe a bicycle wheel.
Suppose instead of a prostitute, someone was selling an overpriced, award winning chocalate cake, guaranteed to be the best tasting cake you have ever had. Would you still think of ditching the bike?
I would take the bike. It seems that sexual gratification is the most reckless form of gratification there is (in males at least). Makes you think how powerful our instinctive drive to procreate is, that it can tempt us to abandon future hapiness for the instant thrill of here and now.
How much of our actions does it drive, and how much control do we really have over it?
Actually I got a pretty good bike at wallmart for 100 bucks. It was an on sale name brand rip off. It had all Mongoose parts, but had some ghetto brand for the stickers.
Well because you stole the hundred dollars from the Frighter, I’d say the correct moral course of action would be to try to return it. That’s impossible so give it to good will.
Of course, perhapse you didn’t steal it. Perhapse he gave it to you as a trusted friend for a specific purpose. Which would be in this case to give it to the next Frighter in order to purcase a bycycle for him.
Finnially, its possible that the Frighter that did all the work, did so purely for the sake of your happyness. In which case, enjoy it as you will.
So it all depends on what kind of relationship you have with yourself:
if relationship = advisarial, then correct moral action= goodwill
if relationship = proffessional, then correct moral action= buy bike
if relationship = loveing, then correct moral action= buy hooker/cake
Of course all the Frighters in question are now long gone, but I think this will be a pretty good form for others to follow.
this is what i would do:
i would live in the ‘eternal now’ like alan watts says and take the prostitute. i’d stick it in her ass. i’d video tape it ofcourse… and it’d be more valuable than a stinking bike.
if you choose priority to your ‘future self’, at what point do you take priority for your ‘self-in-the-now’? (or if you don’t, then don’t you keep putting things off?)
or what sort of immediate benefits determine taking priority for ‘now-self’ over future-self. (and compared to what future harms)
The question is would you regret intercourse with the prositute afterwards? If yes then its obviously not worth it as your happiness is your priority here. The problem is would you regret not having intercourse with the prosistute also. Then the awnser must come from which would you regret more and which choice would bother you more in the aftermath.
But then again frighter why do you ask you’ll never get to make the choice, for you don’t have a freewill remember.
As pointed out by Jerry Seinfeld, it’s like your choice in cold medicine. Do you want fast-acting pain relief? Or long-lasting pain relief? Do you want to feel better now, or later? Keep in mind that every ‘self’ feels as if it is the now self. Do you ever feel as if you were at this moment your past self?
Every moment gives us an opportunity to make choices. From our choices we create our behavior and attitude. From our behavior and attitude arise the consequences. Experiencing consequences gives us another opportunity to make choices.
Being aware of and being able to accurately predict consequences is one of the properties of intelligence. Knowing exactly what consequences you want and acting in a manner to achieve those goals is one of the properties of wisdom.
Do whatever yields the most benefit. Don’t look at the problem temporally, what good will that do you? Just choose whatever is the best deal for your dollar. Technically, there is no future or past self, but no present self either, because by the time the data from your senses reaches your brain the event described by this data is already gone into the past, so you can no longer contemplate it as being in the present. So the present is just a blend of the very near past and the very near future, and who is to say that this blend doesn’t extend forever?
The point is, such philosophical nonsense doesn’t get you anywhere.
