the root of all laziness

I wrote the following for my new blog, Inertia Anonymous. If you'd like to comment on it, please head over there.


One negative aspect of blogging for me has been that the cathartic act of getting all my ideas down in words can feel so satisfying that I'm content to abandon those ideas in favor of new ones. It feels kind of like finishing a crossword and throwing it away, except unlike a completed puzzle, a lot of the ideas have value beyond my first application of them.

Over a year ago, after reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, I wrote this awkward, sprawling rant. It contained two related ideas that I wish I had explored more fully, and that could be very relevant to us here at Inertia Anonymous:

1. modularity of mind
2. our "conscious mind" may not have full access to modules

The concept of modularity implies the inevitability of modules conflicting. Meanwhile your conscious mind doesn't know what to make of the erratic impulses/behaviors resulting from those conflicts between modules. So as an example, some kind of pleasure module tells you to keep drinking while some kind of poison control module tells you to vomit. Irrational behavior ensues, and the next morning you wonder why you had that last drink.

So I'm thinking that a lot of internal struggles could be analyzed in this modularity framework, and specifically struggles with laziness. Are there inertia modules that tell us to avoid change and conserve our energy? Could looking at our battles with laziness as struggles between inertia modules and our semi-rational conscious minds be helpful to us?

So far our i-anon community includes:

• the dude: M.D. student
  
• mox: biology Ph.D. student
• cara: M.D./Ph.D. student
• adspar & WK: amateur evolutionary psychology enthusiasts

Considering that lineup, I'm hoping that this generates some interesting discussion.