Future

It's a well known question: if all we know and are is *now*, what sense is there in preparing for the future?

In the late 1960s, a study was conducted in Stanford where a child was seated at a table with a marshmallow placed in front of them. The child could eat it now or wait until the researcher returned, at which point they would get a second marshmallow. These children were tracked throughout their adult lives, and those who were able to delay gratification tended to have "better" life outcomes -- better paying jobs, better health, etc. 

Some people moralize delay of gratification, talk highly of discipline and grit. Not everyone feels so strongly about it but I'm sure most agree future-thinking is better than living hedonistically or impulsively -- that it's far better to wait for the second marshmallow.

I question that, though. Only the present moment is certain -- and even if we model the future, the further out it gets the more uncertain it is. And a marshmallow in hand is worth two in the bush, no?

There is no real benefit to assigning a hierarchy to different parts of the brain -- the so-called "monkey brain" and the frontal lobe are all part of a singular reinforcement learning agent that seeks reward. For some, two marshmallows doesn't mean double the happiness and they'd rather have a certain marshmallow now. For others, maybe the waiting itself is the reward, as the promise of two is worth it. Or perhaps the reward is the the feeling that you're following the rules, that you're taking the "smarter" path, being a good boy like your parents taught you, or even avoiding punishment by doing the "right" thing. Maybe you even get to feel better than those undisciplined, uneducated folk who just can't wait. 

As it turns out, the latter is closer to the truth. Later replications of the marshmallow study found that family environment and socioeconomic status explained much of the difference in life outcomes. In other words, people who wait for two marshmallows do so mostly because their parents told them to. Then they grow up and tell their kids the same thing, that two is better than one, which conditions their kids to reward themselves while waiting for that marshmallow ("I'm a good kid"/"I'll get hit if I..."/"I'm better than them"), and hence the two-marshmallow faith self-perpetuates.