A law of iterated preference

The self cannot choose a change in its own preferences. Changes in preferences can be only externally determined.

The mind, to be sure, can prefer that the body could react differently to stimuli. The mind could think: "I wished I could stop to eat disorderly" but that deals with the mind (the first "I") making reference to something external (the second "I"): the bodily reaction. It is not different, in essence, to having a pet animal and think "I wished my dog could stop eat disorderly".

But a preference on the own preferences cannot change those preferences. They already are what they are, by the very choice.

An application of this idea to the economic theory is that, an agent, by definition, cannot know about shifts in his own demand or supply curves.

This assertion (that the self cannot consciously change its own preferences) is comparable to the Law of Iterated Expectations: "if I expect to expect something at some date in the future, then I already expect that something at present (Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan).