Aug 2004, 14 entries

Alex’s recent review of The Paradox of Choice reminded me about maximizers and satisficers… and having gone through a couple big decisions lately I can’t help but overthink about it in a downward spiral that eventually short circuits my brain.

Maximizers are people who always try to choose the best thing. They want the best toothpaste, the best car, the best significant other, the best dreams at night. Satisficers will take the first thing that matches their requirements. They want clean teeth, and therefore choose the first toothpaste that they believe will do the job. They want to get to work, and buy the first car that will take them there. Or maybe they’ve got different requirements but it’s a different way to go about things. A satisficer with really high requirements will in practice probably act a lot like a maximizer.

Amazon’s Gold Box is a good game to think about in terms of maximizers and satisficers… sorta. Well, you can take the deal offered right in front of you or PASS FOREVER and take a chance on the next offer. In reality, about 100% of the time I don’t see any deals that look tempting, but if every deal looked tempting then it would help me determine if I’m a maximizer or a satisficer. A satisficer would take the first tempting deal. A maximer would have a much more difficult game to play because they would have to weigh the level of temptation that they’re currently enduring versus the chances that something more tempting might come up in the remaining offers. The odd and dangerous part is that in the beginning, the chances of something more tempting coming up later are much higher than they are when you’re closer to the end. However, the chance that the most tempting thing is at the end is equal to the chance that the most tempting thing is at the beginning. So what I’m guessing happens is that maximizers would be most likely to buy the 6th or 7th item in the 10 item sequence, as the probabilities of the future shrink to the point that they are smaller than the fear of running out of options. I wish words could draw little pictures…

So we probably all have a little maximizer in us… question is, what do we do with him/her? The little guy that tells us that the first relationship we ever get in is most likely not the best on that you might have ever gotten in. The one that tells you to quit that job that you got right out of college because what are the chances that the first job you got is really the best one? Can we suppress the maximizer in us and encourage the satisficer in us to try and find out what our requirements for happiness really are and completely cut off that voice to wait until all options have been considered before making a decision? Because the problem with waiting for the best is that we can’t recognize the best. You can’t solve a problem when you don’t know how to recognize the answer. On the other hand, the satisficers have a clear solution-recognition algorithm: does it meet these requirements? Yes, then we’re good. No, then move on.

The maximizer will then say to the satisficer, “How do you know your requirements are the best requirements to have?” Which, of course, is a trick question! Damn maximizer, trying to bring the idea of best back into the equation… that stinking filthy element. Am I talking to myself? I can’t tell. Whatever. The satisficer should say back, “My requirements for my requirements are self-justified. They are the best because they are what I decided to use after using enough time to decide upon them.” But the satisficer is not satisfied. The unknown is still lurking behind every word… what would the requirements be if he had spent a little more time thinking about them? Would they be substantially different, and result in a completely different eventual match? The maximizer wins by using the circular “how do you know” argument. The satisficer can only win by answering each question with “because.” And I remember as a kid driving my parents mad by asking “why?” to each explanation they gave… it works for any question. And if a kid can beat parents down with such a simple tactic, so can the maximizer beat the satisficer down.

Luckily, the brain short circuits and you stop thinking about it. When you’re not thinking about it, the satisficer has free reign to put his/her program into place and get you on your way to making decisions in a productive manner. But it’s all under the table, it makes you feel a little guilty, because if the thinking police ever came around and thoroughly questioned you on your behaviour, you would get stuck again in that why/because circle of endless torment.

I promise to stop taking flu medicine as soon as this stupid illness goes away.

Buster Butterfield McLeod posted a photo:

Buster Butterfield McLeod posted a photo:

Buster Butterfield McLeod posted a photo:

Buster Butterfield McLeod posted a photo:

Buster Butterfield McLeod posted a photo:

Buster Butterfield McLeod posted a photo:

I gave notice at Amazon. Scary and fun and about time. More info soon, well, as soon as I find out.

The Sorites Heap Paradox is another problem caused by grammar. One grain of sand doesn’t make a heap of sand. Do two grains of sand? How about three? Because there is no firm line between heaps and non-heaps, we think that something really mysterious and wonderful is happening in the world. It hurts our brains. But again this is just caused by the fact that we have words that are pretty much binary. True or not true. Fuzzy logic tries to solve this problem by improving the grammar that we understand how words like “heap” come slowly into existence… but this is silly. Why solve grammar problems with more grammar? Grammar will always have problems. Because it is not exact.

I ran into this problem with thinking about my fundamental purpose a while ago. What one thing should I strive for in life above all others? It is a quick road to depression. There is no thing. People intuitively know this, as I had constant warnings about the dangers of such a train of thought. But the answer, it turned out, was to create a list of things that, when taken collectively, a sense of purpose and meaning emerges, but no single one is worthy of standing above the rest.

Grammar problems can be fun though. I started this because I was going to write an entry about the problem of knowing when a marriage ends. Does it end when you think it? When you say it out loud? When someone hears it? When you file the papers? When the papers return? Is a chair still a chair when it only has 3 legs? What about if it only has 2 legs? What if it only has 1 leg? Is it now a broken chair or is it firewood? The brain likes to play with problems like these, but that doesn’t mean that they’re worthwhile problems. A problem that can’t be solved is merely entertainment for the bored.

At the same time, there is a practical motivation to solve these unsolvable problems. One can’t start thinking about dating until a marriage is over. But once one starts thinking about dating, it probably means that it’s over. There is no question to ask, and no answer to give. So many supposed questions are like this. One should make a list:

• Questions about best and worst
• Questions about beginnings and ends
• Questions about always and never
• Questions about reasons that things happen or their meaning
• Questions about something and nothing
• Questions about being infinity large, infinitely small, or infinitely divisible
• Questions about cause and effect
• Questions about whether or not something is something else, or something equals something

This needs to be fleshed out and explained a bit more at some point.

One of the great things about Slovakia (and probably many other European countries) is that car passengers can still drink! Their laws for drinking drivers, on the other hand, are much more strict (the driver couldn’t have any drinks on the day that they were driving, since any alcohol in the blood at all was considered illegal).

Another great thing is that they have plenty of strange, new, somewhat awful-but-still-delightful tasting drinks which constantly kept me on my toes (figuratively, as you will see).

This next picture was taken about 5am on the morning after the big wedding, and the guy on the left (who was sort of the entertainer/host of the event) was giving us round after round of half-filled cups (it wouldn’t be appropriate to call them shots) of whisky.

Luckily my friends were kind enough to take a picture of me dangling upside-down on a pole and shortly thereafter abandon me.

The hanging upside-down metaphor ran throughout the trip actually… it’s good to have thematic consistency.

I have a weird lock on my apartment door. You unlock it by turning in the direction opposite that which you’d normally think to turn the lock. However, eventually the opposite direction begins to feel normal and so occassionally I come to the door, think to turn the lock the opposite direction than I’d normally think to turn it, and it doesn’t unlock. Shoot, did I leave the door unlocked? I think. No, the knob doesn’t turn. Then I try the other direction with the key and it unlocks. I guess that’s one problem with storing the direction as “opposite” in my brain… my motor memory battles my brain memory of lock directions. The question is whether or not I should refactor these instructions to use the more fool-proof “right” or “left” instructions for unlocking the door, but I’ve always had trouble with right and left and think that on the whole that will require more net mental energy than just occasionally turning the wrong opposite direction.

Today I mailed out the final papers. And I forgot to put a return address on it. Lost papers from a lost soul, ha.

This is my take on the “good, fast, cheap—pick two” aphorism. I see healthy, cheap, and tasty as the real trichotomy. And usually, you can only pick one.

Most software developers have heard the “good, fast, cheap” adage millions of times. Supposedly, you can write good and fast software, or fast and cheap software, or cheap and good software, but you cannot write good, fast, and cheap software. It helps us remember that there are trade-offs for every decision. It immediately rings true, even if it’s probably more of a cute saying than a useful saying.

On the other hand, every day I find myself choosing between the healthy item on a menu, the cheap item on a menu, and the tasty item on a menu. They are always three different items. Most of the time when I’m by myself I try to choose between the healthy and the cheap items. When I’m with friends for some reason I figure that I’m supposed to be having fun and I usually choose the tastiest item.

More generally, healthy represents the long-term vision. Tasty represents the short-term vision. And cheap represents the most efficient vision regardless of time. You could say that any two of these things has something in common. Most decisions probably have a little bit of all three of these, but I notice that you can only worship one at a time. The gods will know which one you are worshipping at any given time.

This metaphor can apply to almost any decision-making process. Buying a house, choosing a job, relationships, choosing what to do with a free evening, and of course, choosing what to eat at a restaurant. And I think because there are 3 options, and all three of them could in some ways be labelled “good”, I think it’s difficult to remember that the decisions actually involve this many dimensions. Most of us like to scale down to a decision along 1 dimension. We just say “best”. What’s the best thing on the menu? What’s the best movie out right now? What’s the best book you’ve read in the last 12 months. Because of the ambiguity and multi-dimensionality of “best” endless confusion and conflicting opinions results and we don’t know why. Except now we do. Though, don’t worry, we’ll forget in a few.

I’ve been back from my trip for about 3 days now and I feel like if I don’t write more about it that it will slowly be wrapped in shiny wrapping paper and stuffed under my bed for safe keeping. Sometimes we talk about the processes of the brain as if they were charming… “it all feels like a dream,” or “it feels like we never even left,” or “it seems like it all happened so long ago,” but really these processes aren’t charming at all. They’re sinister, they’re ruinous! Sure, they are probably doing useful things… extracting useful bits, discarding what no longer applies to daily usage. How will I even know how much I’ve already forgotten?

Ivan often said things like, “Over this hill you will have to pay attention. It is a different world. You will see. This is how they live. You will not see this anywhere else.” Imagine a Slovak accent and the hazy effects of lack of sleep and too much drinking as you roll into a tiny village with buildings between 500 and 1,000 years old, and old ladies peeking over fences, and gypsies selling fruit, and a little kid with a huge head and wide-set eyes peering at you from his bicycle. He almost runs himself into a wall. We believed Ivan then. I still do now. It was a different world. I would hate to forget.

Of the four or five people who asked me what I did, none had ever heard of Amazon. People had little opinion of Bush… and those that did were sympathetic as often as skeptical. I saw almost zero movie theaters… except for the one time we actually sought one out and it was playing one movie. At the houses I stayed at, most didn’t have a television and those that did kept them off the entire time I was there. There wasn’t ambient music playing at every location. Huge rooms full of people eating and talking and it was quiet. You could hear each other. Contrast that to my experiences here were I didn’t even realize that I had to shout to be heard across the table at even a coffee shop or a casual restaurant.

The word “repressed” came up a lot when I thought about how I normally am back in Seattle. Careful. Even when I’m being spontaneous it’s within a context of making sure that nobody is offended. You are free… just don’t upset anyone. Or even surprise them. Surprise is a federal crime in the States. You tip-toe through conversations, avoiding potential awkwardness at every turn. Or at least this is how I am. I didn’t realize just how deeply I had begun to become oversensitized to potentially awkward or offensive or surprising actions or words. At the same time, I realized that I’m a big endorser of the avoidance of those very things. I hush people who speak too loudly about something that might disturb a nearby eavesdropper. Is this the best way to live? Where does the road of reservation and safest possible interactions with fellow humans lead us… twenty years from now will the entire world be constantly paranoid about hurting each others feelings, while at the same time dealing with many more people with different backgrounds at the same time, or will the tide shift and will people learn to embrace more risky conversations and interactions at the expense of occasional misunderstandings? It’s a generalization.

It’s all silly.

So what did I miss while I was gone? I like how the words “simplification” and “simplicity” have different connotations. That’s a simplification. Embrace simplicity.