One cookie now or two cookies later

Yesterday I was talking with my friend about some difficult issues he was having related to raising his son, and in particular with respect to a complex decision where there are clear pros and cons on either side of the equation. On a certain level, of course, it's laughable to ask me about raising a child, since I've none of my own. But philosophy is philosophy; some wisdom is always worthy.

When we were talking, I was thinking of him and his son just as people like those I often help--which is to say graduate students. He's a smart guy, but his son is eight, so you can't quite talk through ideas the same way with an eight year old. "But there has to be a simplified parallel that he would understand," I finally claimed.

And there is; it's a classic one. I think that Daniel Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence says something to the effect that those who, as children, choose two cookies later over one now, tend to be more successful as adults--successful in most measurable dimensions, in terms of career, social life, etc. I don't know if Goleman's assertion is true, but it is clear to me that the one cookie now vs. two later is a model for many of the things we face in life.

My friend was concerned with some issues of social responsibility, but also with his son's social community, too. He felt a conflict between large-scale social responsibility, and a desire to care for his son and to give him opportunities. Two different value systems were coming into conflict.

As I was out running today, I was thinking that the one cookie now vs. two cookies later paradigm is a good one for talking about the complexity of issues, and for showing how we can be faced with questions whose answer is not clear, or which inevitably involve some sort of compromise.

Suppose you're offered one cookie now vs. two later. One good first question might be "how much later?" If you only have to wait one minute for the two cookies, it seems like a no-brainer. Similarly, if you are going to wait a decade to get the two cookies, it seems pointless not to take the one right now. Somewhere in between these two extremes, we might logically presume that there is a point where it is hard to decide.

In exploring the complexity of the question, we can also note that the reward offered for waiting (the two cookies) can be altered--maybe it's three cookies later, or ice cream and a cookie later instead of just a cookie now.

These are terms, I think, that an eight year old could understand. On the other hand, getting an eight year old to see the point, and to accept it may be unlikely. After all, this is difficult for adults to manage.
Some decisions are like the one cookie now vs. two cookies in one minute decision: it's easily made. Most are not.

When we're writing, or when we're managing a project, or when we're trying to decide whether to support an institution (like my alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley), we're faced with questions that are much more closely balanced. Yes, the University builds weapons of mass destruction; it also harbors and supports some very good progressive thought. Yes, the university sports programs are problematic in many ways; they also do some good, and buying tickets to one game won't really make a difference. Yes, you want your son to be able to have communal activities with friends, including ones that you enjoyed as a youth; you also want your son to be able to make socially responsible decisions that promote peace, justice, etc.
Or, to take this out of the realm of my friend and into the realm of the writer: we might offer this similar paradigm:
shitty draft now vs. good draft later. How long do you wait for the good draft? A shitty draft now may be far superior--if, for example, you have been told you must submit something immediately or be dropped from your program. Sure, at such a moment it would be nice to have a good draft, but often we feel that the draft we currently have is a shitty one.
The answer is never clear. Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy, once wrote that a bad letter in good time was better than a good letter late (though he said it more elegantly than my awkward paraphrase, I have lost the original quote and the reference to my source--I think it was from a collection of his letters). But if you submit a bad draft to a publisher, you may be rejected out of hand, hurting your future chances, while waiting longer would have meant a better reception.

Sadly there is no clear answer to many of the problems that we struggle with (which may help explain why we struggle with them). I believe that the more clearly we can see what is involved in choosing the different alternatives, the better we can make a choice that will serve us well.

Well, the logic sounds ok, but I wouldn't want to try to convince anyone of the wisdom herein--least of all an eight year old.

Defining personal space

Just some random musing--I don't, at least as I start writing, have a conclusion.

A writer told me that I had been helping her set boundaries, especially with her committee, and that it was helping. Which seemed odd to me, because I couldn't remember ever talking about setting boundaries with her. I do remember talking a lot about having a sense of purpose, about believing in herself and her bringing out her own voice and about tapping in to the things that she felt most strongly about, and then to use that to tell her committee what it was that she wanted, and to use what they gave back as much as it was useful to her and not to get stressed about the parts that weren't useful, but just to stay focused on her own sense of purpose.

I understand, in retrospect, how these things can be seen as boundary setting issues.

But I guess I was thinking of them in a different way. We can define spaces--actual or conceptual--in two ways: in terms of distance from some central point(s), or in terms of boundaries. These can accomplish the same thing, but they don't act quite the same way.
Sometimes we have clearly delimited boundaries--between nations, we find rivers often are used to determine boundaries; a vegetarian sets a clear boundary between what will be eaten (everything but meat) and what will not (meat); religious fundamentalists tend to set strict boundaries.
Sometimes boundaries are not so clear: where is the clear line between music that is too loud and music that is not? Where the line between a photograph that is over-exposed and one that is not?

I like to think in terms of centers--in terms of principles--more than I like to think in terms of boundaries (though, as I say above, both are useful). Boundaries limit our ability to adapt and negotiate. I feel like when I'm focused on the central issue that I'm concerned with, then I can allow various changes in the periphery without sacrificing the central principle that is important to me. When I have a boundary set, it's harder to give it up in a compromise, even if that compromise allows me to attain a central goal.

To choose a stark example, we might look at the biblical commandment "Thou shalt not kill." This is defined in terms of a boundary: there is a clear line marked--the line between killing and not killing. The guidance derived from this boundary is clear. But that clarity can be problematic: what if you are faced with the option of killing one person to save the lives of hundreds (or thousands or millions...)? The boundary definition creates a dilemma: death will ensue, and to some extent one will be responsible, but the boundary rule pushes one towards allowing the individual to live. We can recast the same idea as a principle: strive to preserve life. This principle sets no boundary, and in the case described above, it clearly guides the user: one life is taken to save others. Perhaps this is a bad example, because the question is very tricky and loaded. Obviously this is the sort of justification that the Bush administration used to justify torture: "well, we don't want to do it, but our higher principle excuses it."
Nonetheless, I still find it powerful (without being reprehensible) to work from principles. In the case of the writer I was talking about at the beginning of the post, all the things that she saw as being a matter of setting boundaries, I saw as a matter of her developing a good understand of her core principles and her trying to apply them. She's thinking about it in terms of setting boundaries that keep her from accommodating her committee when it serves her ill; I'm thinking about it in terms of her clearly identifying what she wants and then clearly asking for what she wants to get from the committee. I guess I like being able to see it both ways and to think about it both ways.

I guess, also, I'm a little disturbed when I see how the use of reasoning from principles, instead of boundaries, can allow terrible justifications. But the flip side is that boundaries are also used to terrible ends--such as the boundaries set by certain cultures that allow the exploitation or destruction or oppression of another culture (e.g., the clear boundary that defined Jews in Nazi Germany, or the clear legal boundaries that defined who was "colored" and where "colored people" were allowed to go in the Jim Crow laws of the US).

Well, both ways of looking at things can cause problems, I guess, so it's best to understand how we can define spaces--in our lives and in our discourse--in two different ways, and having those two ways helps greatly.

Another thought: it had been kicking around in my mind, but hadn't popped out. How are categories defined? What makes a category? How is membership in a category determined? The classic, rationalist view is that categories are defined by a boundary, but cognitive science research (esp. by Eleanor Rosch and her colleagues) shows that conceptual categories are often structured around a central prototype (a model, paradigm or exemplar) and not defined by boundaries. Studies of semantics show that the usage of words is typically defined in terms of central models that are then extended to new meanings (cf. Lakoff, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things). So, in terms of how we think about the world (and in terms of how we might want to set up an argument about the world), we need to understand the difference between defining concepts in terms of boundaries or in terms of centers/prototypes.

I'm not going to try to draw this together into any meaningful conclusion.