As people, we have very different values and opinions. Each of us come with different genes and life story and the values derived from them. Many of the values we share with pretty much everyone else. Many values differ, but are usually compatible between people. Some values are not, and they cause conflicts. Even though we may prefer some values over others, we cannot say that some are a priori wrong, as no universal good exists (see what is good). Every value a person may adopt is valid and we cannot objectively claim otherwise (but again, we may dislike it). That being said, two important objective criteria about values still exist.

The first type, which I will not go into here, is practicality. Holding some values simply is not practical. Some values will even kill you, and for some, most people would want to kill you.

The other type is consistency. We may live our life built upon all sorts of values and be just fine. But if the values we hold at the same time collide with one another, we are in trouble. Likely you know it from your experience with yourself, and with other people, too.

There are two kinds of internal value (and the following opinions) inconsistency – concurrent, and temporal. The concurrent inconsistency is the core issue. The temporal kind is important practically, but not very important theoretically, as the underlying reasons are simple. We mainly perceive it with other people, who, at different times, claim opposing things. That is the most common way in which we encounter value inconsistency, hence the large, perceived, practical impact. But what does it really mean?

The first possible reason behind it may be that in the meantime, the person has developed. Be it for better or worse, it is not really an inconsistency – it is progress. If we have good reasons to, we should develop and improve our opinions or even values. It is a good thing.

A second common reason is that it is a manifestation of the important concurrent inconsistency. Incompatible values battle each other within the person, and different one is winning at different times.

The third case is that they are lying. This case is uninteresting, as this creates another layer on top that only obscures the reasons that matter.

So the kind of conflict that really matters is the one happening at the same moment.

If our values conflict, we cannot make good decisions, we cannot be confident about our choices, and we cannot invest into building some future based on those values as they will likely have to give way sooner or later. Similarly, it is terrible to deal with inconsistent people. They will tell you they want one thing, and then the opposite, and we can’t trust them and rely on much of what they say.

Internal consistency is critical. It creates the solid foundations of our personality, of our life. With these solid foundations, we can clearly say what is true or not, what is good or wrong. We are certain about what we like and what we don’t, and make decisions and plans based on it. Similarly, we want to deal with consistent people. We can follow and expect a clear line of action from them, which is often even more important than what that line is. Notice how we sometimes hear it said about someone that “He is evil (in some way), but at least he is consistent about it”. It is easier to deal with a person who you know will always lie to you and go after money, than a person who doesn’t know what they want and will honestly try to help you for months and then backstab you the next day for no apparent reason whatsoever.

There are people who would go as far as basically expecting others to either be consistent, or not consider them as valid humans. Myself, I have always been trying to achieve consistency, but there were always insurmountable obstacles in the way. It should not come as a surprise as  people have been struggling with this for all of known history. Even people who wrote the oldest text knew, and were unable to solve, the conflict between the basic human instincts and the higher virtues. Virtually everyone, to this day, has troubles doing what they know they should, and not doing the things they know they want. 

At many times, I thought that these sides cannot be accommodated. And then I read the excellent book “An ordinary life” by Čapek, and I knew they can’t. I gave up, in a way, but it was for the better, as it got me closer to recognizing the truth. With some rare exceptions of people who are built differently (bugged, basically), the consistency is impossible. At least on the level that we all normally consider.

The reason is the way our brain is built. This whole argument that we need to be consistent rests on a delusion about ourselves. A delusion that we are in control. A delusion that our brain is all connected and built around one place (our conscious awareness) that all information and decisions go through. If it were so, we could always consider everything, weigh all the aspects and options, and do this process consistently and objectively, always arriving at the same conclusion. We can make errors, sure. But as long as we are smart enough, we should not want two incompatible things without conditions changing.

But the brain is not like that. The brain is decentralized. It consists of many modules with varying degree of autonomy. They each do their own thing, sometimes even acting entirely on their own. Only sometimes they send their requests to our awareness, asking us to pick their choice over the other modules. This is what is commonly summarily called the subconsciousness.

For this reason we can at a single moment want the ice cream we see, not want it because we maintain weight, want to have sex with the girl walking past, not wanting to because we are better than that, hate the immigrant beggars ruining the city while feeling empathy and understanding, all while we walk and scratch our head without thinking about it at all.

Our brain is built like a crowd of voters. Some have been there since lizard times, some are newcomers. They all want their own thing, and they constantly fight. At different times, their relative strength differs, because our state changes (hunger, hormones, mood, …), our outside possibilities change (the ice cream is right there; the police is not). So the sugar hungry module may lose most of the time, but it also wins on some days, beating the health and belt size ones.

Unless our brain gets seriously damaged or rewired (some people can achieve that if they meditate long enough), this is what we will always be dealing with. We cannot always be consistent.

Here comes the “level” I mentioned earlier. We can still be consistent, but we have to play a higher game. We need to be aware that our brain is always going to want and sometimes even to do things we may not always agree with as our best rational self. Of course, we should still always try to be the best version of ourselves. This recognition of our brain’s weakness is not a free pass for anything. But it is a free pass out of the mandate of perfect consistency on every level. Yes, it is a weakness – a perfect brain would be able to always decide rationally and correctly. But this is where we are, at this point of evolution.

In order to be consistent, we need to give the brain some leeway. Expect it to do funny things, be ready for it, and deal with it. Build a solid, consistent, aware personality that is so high above it, that it does not get affected by these quirks. Just buy the brain the ice cream sometimes, take the L, and have a laugh about it, knowing that in the long term, you win.