Reddit reviews Neuroscience of Preference and Choice: Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms

> Even if you conflate terminal and instrumental values, you can act irrationally from an objective viewpoint.

I agree.

> To your second point: If I know that I should be studying, but I also know that at this moment, I would rather relax and watch a movie, which option is the rational one?

There's actually a book on this point I'd love to recommend to you. There's nothing that says first-order desires and second-order desires can't be in conflict. As to which one objectively is going to be better for you in the long-term I'd say we both know which one is obvious. We may have a highly unhealthy habit of smoking while at the same time, desiring the wish that we had the ability to stop, as it's bad for our health.

> Or

> If I sacrifice my social life, my hobbies, my girlfriend etc. so I can spend more time on my education, I will achieve better results long term. Is it rational for me to sacrifice all of those things?

Depends on all the factors we can think of that carry weight. We as human beings make complex decisions like that all the time. As a hypothetical of course, I can't give you a definitive answer, since reasoning about counterfactuals can be very much at odds with how we process a complex decision when actually confronted with one. The most I could say about the hypothetical is that the rational choice could go either way (depending on what information I had, but again, perfect symmetry of information is seldom available, in any choice).

> What is the rational balance of discounting value according to time?

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean here. If you'd clarify I'd appreciate it.