Breakdown of Will (2001) is a book about breaking down will, that is, dissecting the idea of a "will" and show how will is made from little pieces. The book is too long for me to read because I'm a very busy pony, so I'll just read summarize fro Précis of Breakdown of Will (2005).
BTW, Ainslie's breakdown of will has no relation to Jaynes' breakdown of the bicamel mind, but the name really reminds me of the breakdown, which is how I came to notice Ainslie's breakdown of will theory. I'm such a nihilist, I just can't stop myself from finding another thing to breakdown.
The author, George Ainslie, is most famed for his discovery of hyperbolic discounting in Specious reward: A behavioral theory of impulsiveness and impulsive control (1975).
People devalue a given future event at different rates, depending on how far away it is. This phenomenon means that our preferences are inherently unstable and entails our present selves being pitted against what we can expect our future selves to want."Discounting" means that humans prefer the same reward to come sooner. The \$100 that comes in a month seems to be less attractive than the \$80 that comes today. This is a very reasonable assumption, for two reasons:
- Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.
- \$80 today can be invested and turned into \$100 by the end of the month. Though to be realistic, the average return on capital is just 5%/year.
