Kaj Sotala
Article
Kaj Sotala is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between March 26, 2021 and August 19, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “represented eg here by Kaj Sotala”; “Kaj Sotala writes: These descriptions resonated with me”. It most often appears alongside 00s, 70s, 80s.
Metadata
- Category: People
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: March 26, 2021
- Last seen: August 19, 2022
Appears In
Related Pages
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- 00s (1 shared issues)
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- 70s (1 shared issues)
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- 80s (1 shared issues)
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- 90s (1 shared issues)
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- Andrew Yang (1 shared issues)
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- Anon (1 shared issues)
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- anti-racist movement (1 shared issues)
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- atheist movement (1 shared issues)
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- basal ganglia (1 shared issues)
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- Baumeister and Tierney (1 shared issues)
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- Bayes (1 shared issues)
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- Bryan Caplan (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
A tradition originating in psychotherapy, and ably represented eg here by Kaj Sotala, interprets willpower as conflict between mental agents. One "subagent" might want to sit down and study for a test. But maybe one subagent represents the pressure your parents are putting on you to do well in school so you can become a doctor and have a stable career, and another subagent represents your own desire to drop out and become a musician, and even though the "do well in school" subagent is on top now, the "become a musician" subagent is strong enough to sabotage you by making you feel mysteriously unable to study. This usually ends with something about how enough therapy can help you reconcile these subagents and have lots of willpower again. But this works a lot better in therapy books than it does in real life. Also, what childhood trauma made my subagents so averse to doing dishes?
Inline links: here by Kaj Sotala, therapy books