How do we control our minds? Ideally, we first choose what we want to do, then make ourselves do it. But that’s harder than it sounds: we spend our lives in search of schemes for self-control. We celebrate when we succeed, and when we fail, we re angry with ourselves for not behaving as we wanted to—and then we try to scold or shame or bribe ourselves to change our ways. But wait! How could a self be angry with itself? Who would be mad at whom? Consider an example from everyday life.

“I was trying to concentrate on a certain problem but was getting bored and sleepy.

“Then I imagined that one of my competitors, Professor Challenger, was about to solve the same problem. An angry wish to frustrate Challenger then kept me working on the problem for a while. The strange thing was, this problem was not of the sort that ever interested Challenger.”

What makes us use such roundabout techniques to influence ourselves? Why be so indirect, inventing misrepresentations, fantasies, and outright lies? Why can’t we simply tell ourselves to do the things we want to do?

Marvin Minsky, Society of Mind (1986)