Hal Hershfield, a professor of marketing and author of Your Future Self, dives deep into the fascinating connection between our present and future selves. He explores why our future self often feels like a stranger and the psychological concept of the 'yes damn effect,' where we overcommit to future obligations. Hal shares techniques for mental time travel, emphasizing the importance of creating a bond with our future self. Listeners will learn common pitfalls in planning and strategies to balance present enjoyment with future well-being.
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insights INSIGHT
Three Selves
We exist as present selves making decisions, in-between selves enacting them, and future selves reaping benefits.
However, our in-between selves often fail, disappointing our future selves.
insights INSIGHT
The Nature of Self
While our "self" feels singular, it's a collection of attributes that change.
This makes defining a continuous self complex, suggesting we're a series of separate selves.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Perceived Self-Continuity
Brett McKay discusses how his wife sees him as the same person despite changes over time.
This raises the question of what constitutes a continuous self in others' perceptions.
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Your Future Self, How to Make Tomorrow Better Today
Hal Hirschfeld
Transformative Experience
L. A. Paul
In 'Transformative Experience', L.A. Paul argues that certain life choices, such as deciding to become a parent, converting to a religion, or medically altering one's physical and mental capacities, are transformative experiences that cannot be assessed in advance. These experiences change the person in both epistemic and personal ways, making it impossible to make fully informed decisions based on current preferences and values. Paul uses classic philosophical examples and recent work in decision theory, cognitive science, and the philosophy of mind to develop a rigorous account of how we should understand and approach such transformative decisions.
As you move through time, you exist as a present self who makes decisions, an in-between self who should carry out those decisions, and a future self who will benefit from those decisions. Yet as we all know, in-between self often fails to follow through on what present self resolves, leaving future self pretty bummed out.
The solution to this dilemma, my guest says, is for your present self to become much better friends with your future self.
His name is Hal Hershfield, and he's a professor of marketing, behavioral decision making, and psychology, and the author of Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. Hal and I spend the first part of our conversation taking a really interesting philosophical dive into what the self even is. We talk about why our future self can feel like a stranger, why it's hard to know what he'll be like, and what this dilemma has to do with becoming a vampire. We then discuss how building a stronger connection with your future self makes your present self more willing to help him, and how you can become closer to your future self by engaging in mental time traveling. Hal shares a couple techniques that can facilitate this mental time travel, three mistakes people make in taking this cognitive trip, and how to start making tomorrow better today.
The Art of Manliness 
