Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by George Ainslie

Quote by George Ainslie

“Principles of choice, or “personal rules,” represent self-enforcing contracts with your future motivational states; such contracts depend on your seeing each current choice as a precedent that predicts how you’re apt to choose among similar options in the future. Short-range interests evade personal rules by proposing exceptions that might keep the present case from setting a precedent. The will is a recursive process that bets the expected value of your future self-control against each of your successive temptations.”

Quote by George Ainslie

Work

Breakdown of Will

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

George Ainslie

Browse famous quotes and profile details for George Ainslie. more

You May Also Like

“I think, in the end, we have to say that there should be no discussion of Martin Luther King Jr. without Ella Baker, which is to say they are complementary. These two figures, voices, tendencies in the Black freedom movement, and particularly in the human freedom movement in general, they say something to young people these days in the age of Obama. See, Obama ends up being the worst example of messianic leadership, captured by a vicious system that is oligarchic domestically and imperialistic globally and uses the resonances of this precious freedom struggle as a way of legitimating himself in the eyes of both the Black people and the mainstream Americans, and acting as if as community organizer he has some connection to Ella Baker, which is absurd and ludicrous in light of him running the oligarchic system and being so proud of heading the killing machine of US imperial powers. So that when young people - who now find themselves in an even more desperate situation given the present crisis - think about the legacy of Martin King and legacy of Ella Baker in the age of Obama, it compounds the misunderstandings and misconstructions, and sabotages the intellectual clarity and political will necessary to create the kind of change we need. To use jazz metaphors, what we need would be the expression and articulation of different tempos and different vibrations and different actions and different witnesses, so it's antiphonal; it's call-and-response, and in the call-and-response, there are Ella Baker-like voices tied to various kinds of deep democratic witnesses that have to do with everyday people organizing themselves. And then you've got the Martin-like voices that are charismatic, which are very much tied to a certain kind of messianic leadership, which must be called into question, which must be democratized, which must be de-patriarchalized. And yet they are part of this jazz combo.”

“Ensure you have done each day’s portion of the heavy responsibilities resting on you. Never delay your success!”

“Something interesting happens when we approach situations from a perspective of humility—it opens us up to possibilities as we choose open-mindedness and curiosity over protecting our point of view. We spend more time in that wonderful space of the 'beginner's mind,' willing to learn from what others have to offer. This translates into moving away from pushing to allowing, from insecure to secure, from seeking approval to seeking enlightenment.”

“Certain wondrous phenomena respond to the human need to know the infinite, truth, beauty, goodness. Others, deliberately enigmatic, remain inaccessible to our brains and hearts. Humans are much too accustomed to penetrating the universe with a narrow and limited mind, ignoring the eighty-thousand doors that are always open, at our disposal.”