RESULTS PART I: EXPECTATION

September 25th, 2019

Make a plan, but don’t plan the results.

It might be helpful to point out something about plans that doesn’t ever get mentioned: Plans are about learning.

Plans are experiments, they are based on hypotheses about reality.  If I do this than A might happen.

Compare it to something like gravity and suddenly the wishy-washy nature of plans comes into focus.  Nobody plans on being sucked towards the earth tomorrow.  We count on it.  We expect it.  So much so that we never think about it.  Only when it’s somehow mitigated by something like swimming or floating around in the International Space Station do we give gravity some thought.  Neither Plans nor their results deserve any of the reliable expectation that we ascribe to gravity.  And yet we often do this, and become as disappointed and upset as if we were to walk into a new room and suddenly fall to the ceiling and get stuck there with 10 times the force of regular gravity. 

Just imagine how aggravating that would be.  Lying there, on the ceiling, stuck, sighing, thinking “not again..”

We have this experience – at least emotionally – all the time.  Something doesn’t go our way, we roll our eyes, frustrated: not again….

Why do we pin expectation to our plans in this way?

It might have something to do with the unsettling nature of the future.  For the time being it’s fairly unpredictable, and the unknown makes us nervous and scared.  For good reason: the unknown can be physically dangerous.  We seem hardwired to default towards fear of the unknown.  And perhaps this was some sort of evolutionary adaptation that kept us safe in the past when things were more dangerous.

Regardless of the origin or cause, we’re gifted with an unproductive tendency to try and speak about the future in terms of certainty.

When we take this course of action, I expect this will be the outcome.

This is indicative of a terrible perspective because it sets itself up for disappointment, which is an entirely new problem that we’ll have to deal with.

Another reason that people use this language though, is because it sounds impressive.  It’s a social hack that some people use for short term gain, and it works because most people are petrified of the unknown, so someone who declares they can create the opposite, by making the future known, will gain a lot of short-term clout. 

Someone who can speak about the future in certain terms and be correct is going to be a very rare and a very valuable human being.  

But the reason this sort of person is going to be rare is because the way to develop an exceptionally robust model of the world – one that is strong enough to make accurate predictions – is going to come about that model through a strategy that requires the exact opposite:  fast, iterative experimentation with little to no emotional attachment to what the results might be. 

Such a person can carry out more experiments for at least one simple reason: with no emotional attachment to some sort of desired results, they get to skip the whole disappointment and frustration thing.  They fast-track straight to the next experiment, and while other people are busy being down in the dumps beating themselves up for failure, this person is busy learning more and gaining an upper hand on how the world works.

This episode relies on episode 514: Falsify

Part II of this episode, A Game of Tennis, is now available tomorrow.

LITTLE THEORIES

September 24th, 2019

Whether we know it or not, we are constantly constructing hypotheses and testing them.  Many of these are under the umbrella of a larger theory, a mental model of some aspect of the world that we have constructed throughout our life.

Examine the word a moment.  It’s hypo- plus –thesis.

Hypo- means literally under, or below.  It’s easy to grip this prefix when we think about the word hypothermia.  Our temperature is below what it should be.

We can think of the word hypothesis in similar terms.

Under the umbrella of our model of the world, we construct little theories that need testing.  Most likely, such little theories will not stand the scrutiny of testing, but if they do, then it rises to the level of a theory and becomes a robust part of our mental model.

The key is in the testing.  Either it works as a valid way of looking at the world or it doesn’t.  Fantasy and delusion enter the picture when we elevate a hypothesis to the level of theory without testing it, but merely on the validity of a warm fuzzy emotional connection.  This is an easy way to develop a dangerous mindset.  Dangerous not just to one’s self but potentially to other people.  And many beliefs fall into this category.

Failing to test beliefs or willfully ignoring the results creates stagnation, and while this might be less of an emotional hassle in the short term, in the long run it is self-defeating for one simple reason:  expanding our accurate understanding of reality increases our agency.

When we entertain beliefs that have little or no evidence of being an accurate depiction of reality, we are literally limiting ourselves as though we refuse to believe that there’s a bigger better playground to go to where we can make something happen.

PATTERN MANIPULATION

September 23rd, 2019

Humans are pattern recognition machines.  We’re pretty good at it.  As long as the pattern is short.  For example, the reason that a guitar chord sounds good is because the vibrational frequency of each string matches up in a short enough timeline.  For example, a deep bass string might have a frequency that is exactly twice as long as another string being played.  In this case, the two would sound good together.

But let’s say the frequency is 290 times longer than the next string being played.  Meaning that the frequency of each string only intersects when one string has vibrated 290 times.  They match up for an instant and then it’s a bit of a wait till there’s another match up.  There’s a pattern, but it only happens every once in a while.  In this case, the notes wouldn’t sound good together because we can’t readily hear the pattern.  This is why guitar chords sound nice.  Each string has a frequency that matches up in some way – usually as a multiple – to the other string being played.  Their frequencies intersect at regular small intervals.  Think of the beat of a song and how all the other instruments follow the beat in accordance to the same timing.  It’s just like the vibrational frequencies of the strings in a guitar chord, but now it’s across instruments.

Listening to a song and feeling a sense of pleasure is the pattern recognition part.

But understanding these patterns deeply enough to rearrange them in novel ways that create a new pattern?  That is artistry.  And it extends far beyond music or any of the traditionally defined arts.

Patterns exist everywhere, whether we examine growth techniques for a Twitter account or the s-curve adoption cycle of disruption technologies.

All such pattern recognition starts as pleasurable novelty. 

It’s when we understand these patterns well enough to successfully manipulate them, that is use the patterns by implementing them or cutting and rearranging them in a way that still works that we gain expanded agency in the world.

To explore this more fully, we can think of Legos.

Each Lego has a predictable pattern of studs, whether it be two or four or whatever number.  Once we understand how these add up and combine by following the instructions, we can then create novel constructions by fitting together the pattern of Lego bricks in accordance to their pattern of studs.

This ability to manipulate patterns in novel ways is at the heart of what it means to be resourceful.

Being resourceful is not about the resources that one might have.  It’s about the exact opposite.  We need to be resourceful when there are few resources at hand, which calls for a novel way to put things together in order to make up for the lack of resources.  At it’s heart, we are looking to combine elements in a way that no one has ever seen before.  We are looking to create a unique pattern.

Our own pattern.

And like any creation, whether it be jazz or architecture, if we can create a novel pattern that pays an obvious tribute to those patterns we draw from, it’s likely people will take notice, because, like that guitar chord, that new pattern is a new way for others to experience pleasure.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: THE MOMENT'S TASK

September 22nd, 2019

Lucilius could not wait for his shift to be over.  The next car pulled up to the window and Lucilius reached out for the crumpled grubby money.  He watched his hands make the automatic movements: flipping up the bill tongue, pushing the bill down into the small stack and dragging a quarter up the curved insert.  He reached out through the window and handed the quarter into the proffered palm, for a limp, ‘thanks’.  Lucilius tapped a wide red button and the red light flipped to green and the gate rose.

It was like this, hour after hour.  Lucilius watched his hands make their movements, over and over, until finally...

his shift was done.

Afterwards he went to a pub by his apartment and sat with a beer.  He paused just a moment before lifting the cold glass to his lips and savored the moment just before relief.  He took a sip of the frothy drink, hearing the tiny static pop of fine bubbles.  Something in him instantly felt as though it relaxed.

And then for the rest of the evening, he watched the movement of his hand, grasping the glass and lifting it to his face.  It was like this, over and over, and he drank to fill the time as he waited until it was time to go home.  Soon he could not really concentrate nor remember what his hands were doing, and it wasn’t long until he woke up in his bed and it was time to go back to work.

He sat down in the toll booth.  He watched his hand reach for the radio to turn it on, but stopped.  He just watched his hand, motionless in its reach, and thought about the evening before, watching his same hand reach for the glass of beer.  He took his hand back and left the radio off.

When the first car came by, his hands again began their automatic exchange, but he stopped them, and watched them for a moment, concentrating on how they felt as one smoothed the bill into the register and the other retrieved the coin.  He handed the change to the driver and looked the person in the face.  The person was in a rush, pinching a phone between their shoulder and the cheek of their face.  Doubtless in a rush to get somewhere else, waiting for the drive to be over.

It was the same with the next car and the next.  Each time Lucilius paid closer attention, as though there was something eluding him, something that he could sense and yet not pin down.  Constantly it seemed as though something were both receding away and always present, and as Lucilius paid greater attention it felt as though time were slowing down.  The short time it took to hand back a quarter to a driver seemed as though it were packed with more time that unfolded and expanded as Lucilius paid ever greater attention, and as he did so the vanishing sensation that each moment ended with seemed more pronounced, and in that fleeting sensation Lucilius remembered the relief he felt at the end of a shift, or just before tasting a beer.  And now he could sense it everywhere, with each moment as he paid attention.  It was as though the moment were both fresh and dead.  He focused even more intensely and time seemed to slow even further. 

With a quarter in hand he was reaching out to hand it to the newest driver, when his focus, his attention, pierced the moment even more fully and the normal speed of his reach seemed to come to a near full stop.  There was now nothing but a full immersion in the moment, which now gave up everything to the gaze of Lucilius.  Time - for just a moment - stopped, to make space for eternity.

EXCELLENT ADDICTIONS

September 21st, 2019

The word ‘habit’ on it’s own is fairly neutral, because it can go either way.  We qualify it by talking about a good habit or a bad habit.

Some people go so far as to claim that absolutely everything we do and think is a form of habit.  Things don’t look strictly the same every time because the context is a bit different and the collision of different context and same habit creates something that seems novel on the surface. 

When it comes to bad habits, we have another term, one that is wholly negative and often compounded by the implications of some chemical.  Extreme bad habits are referred to as addictions.  These pathologies dictate a whole other word because the influence of some chemical is an obvious incentive.

What’s interesting is that every repetitive behavior is incentivized by some sort of chemical.  Most are simply produced and consumed by the brain.  The word ‘addiction’ is usually used when some external chemical is added to the mix.  But the same basic dependence is identical in either case.

We can all bring to mind the image of someone who is obsessed with exercise and the culture of the gym.  Such people are in some sense addicted to the chemicals their brain produces when they perform the physical feats of their workout.  This addiction ratchets upwards like any addiction and many people have damaged their body by pushing too far, and it’s not hard to point out the chase for some higher concentration of the chemicals produced by the brain.

Luckily most people don’t really get to this point and the good habit of working out can become a virtuous cycle that an individual can constantly benefit from.

This is like an Excellent Addiction.

It’s simply another way of saying good habit.  But in this case the hope is to draw the obvious connection to addiction and declutter the word of it’s dirty connotations.  The value here is to reduce the distance between such good and bad behaviors.  All are functioning by virtue of the same exact mechanics.  Whether such mechanics perpetuate a good behavior or a bad one is often a case of luck.

Unless we’ve been lucky enough to have the thought to take such things under our own control.