At the top of the S-curve lies, guilt?

[Legthorn Brownboat]

"The learning challenge in ERE was not so much that the problems (how to build a table, how to grow lettuce, how to bake bread, how to change oil, how to convert a bike, …) were hard but that there were so many of them. That made/makes ERE exciting. But sooner or later one runs out of problems and must either find more problems or try to perfect what one already has. I’m not the kind of guy to, e.g. pick an instrument and spend 10 years getting really good at it. I’ll play it for 2 years to get “good enough” and then look for something else.”
— Jacob (in some random comment under a random blog post)

I closely relate to this, but with one caveat. Does anyone else suffer guilt for abandoning the diminishing returns aspect of an S-curve? I feel like I suffer under an attitude of “I could of been more, if only I had persevered”. Like many people here (maybe we somehow all have similar personalities?), I advance further than most, but then jump ship. According to my wife, I dive pretty deep into things. However, I never feel like I am truly that deep, as I know how much deeper the rabbit hole goes and I can see others who venture further. I reach a certain point towards the top of the S-curve, where I’ve attained expert-level competency, but not mastery. Or, I have obtained mastery, but not grand-mastery. There’s always further, and it always takes the total sum of all past effort to advance a modicum further. So I bail.

I usually hop to another ambition when I see the slowing out at the top. Writing this down, I can see how (objectively) it is totally BS to do this to myself, but I feel constant guilt and regret over unrealized potential. I could of made grand master; I could of made fellow; I could of been a challenger; I could of been called doctor/master/teacher; I could of gone pro/collegiate/whatever. It’s like every time I take up another interest, I’m taking up another burden and source of regret. Even if it’s not for a concrete goal, I always wish I had made more of my investment.

Needless to say, this takes quite its toll on me. I avoid picking up new interests, even spending time with friends if it’s focused around yet another activity that I’ll have to explore and then drop. How screwed up is this? Does anyone else feel this, or am I abnormal in this (/yet another?) regard?

Perhaps it’s poison from a specialist-oriented society…

[Ego]

Grand-mansters probably regret the opposite. I suspect that the last .5% toward mastery requires as much time and effort as the previous 20%. That investment in time and effort means they are not doing something else. Grass is always greener.

[susswein]

I live by the 80/20 rule: You get 80% of the return for the first 20% of the effort, but it takes 80% of the work to get the last 20% of the return.

That's probably why I have so many "almost done" projects

[pooablo]

+1 @ Ego

I would say the same for Olympic athletes. Think of how much time and energy those athletes put into training only to get 2nd place. How many people, without using Google, even remember the gold medallist for any event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics?

I used to be a perfectionist when I was in grade school and I would get upset if I didn't get an A+ on an assignment or exam. I wised up in University and discovered the 20/80 rule. There is so much more to life than being a grand master or being in first place.

I'd rather view the task from an opportunity cost perspective. What am I giving up to improve my talent/skill by 1%? I could have become a [insert desired grand specialty] but then I wouldn't have been able to cook, climb, travel, spend time with friends, learn other languages, read, or do a whole host of other innumerable activities.

[jacob]

Is it guilt or regret?

Be careful about using the Pareto rule without knowing the full range it applies to. I read somewhere---chess players may want to comment but it certainly applies to other fields---that the difference between a grandmaster and national master (something that should be achievable with lots of study) is as big as that between a national master and a club player. This suggests that even reaching national level is only halfway there.

That's a difference in kind.

As long as there's a difference in kind to achieve, it may be worthwhile to continue striving.

It's, however, almost impossible by construction(?!) to know the difference as seen from the bottom (unskilled). E.g. a novice martial artist might see all black belts as being the same. But the black belts will certainly be able to see which of them is the better. Similarly with chess.

I tend to jump ship once I see (or think I see) that further efforts are only going to make quantitative differences, not qualitative differences. What's important here (to me... but definitely not to all athletes(*)) about the Olympics is not whether all of us athletic noobs remember who got the medals but that those who participated know that they qualified for it.

(*) I saw some disturbing stats that a rather large number of elite athletes would be willing to cheat in order to win if they knew they wouldn't get caught.

[Dragline]

The human desire to be recognized in one's field/hobby/game/activity is a strong one, even if only to be recognized by those in the field, and is always something to be balanced against the opportunity cost of making the effort.

I think its also irrational to a large extent (and any guilt associated with it). Fame is fleeting, as they say, and can be quite unpredictable.

There's also a random quality to it that tends to make fools of everyone. Today's famous are tomorrow's forgotten, while some otherwise obscure individuals achieve immortality after they are dead (e.g., Spinoza, Van Gogh).

[Legthorn Brownboat]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! In case it wasn't clear from my original post, I fully understand the Pareto principle (a instance of the S-curve or power law), and for the most part follow it. I was more so referring to the psychological after-effects, which I fully experience but may be rare in this community (and I totally understand are irrational). I guess I'm trying to improve myself and have noticed guilt and regret holding me back.

@Jacob, I had never thought of it in terms of distinguishing between guilt and regret. Looking into it more, guilt and regret seem to be duals, with guilt yielding negative effects and regret (potentially) positive ones. I think it would be an interesting exercise for me to go over every one of them, and see if I can categorize them into guilt or regret. Perhaps the exercise will help me shift some over to regret.

This is in line with Stoic philosophy (my most recent hobby). When reflecting on your prior mistakes, criticize the action harshly but never the actor.

About chess and the difference in levels, that's certainly talked about a lot. It's common among high level players to envision a series of discrete, equally spaced milestones, where attaining each milestone is greater than or equal to the sum of all prior milestones. This is also roughly consistent with Elo. That's another way of saying that achievement is on an exponential scale (which is different from a power scale, but let’s ignore the difference — logs and roots both grow slowly).

@Dragline, I agree on the desire for recognition. I think that’s played a part in it, definitely, and I agree it’s nonsense. Reminds me of another Stoic principle: why do people care about what others think of them after death; they don’t seem to care what others thought of them before birth.

[jacob]

@LB - Yes, what I was unsuccessfully trying to get at was that not all achievements follow a power law. The power law seems to hold in terms of ranking oneself with regards to other humans whereas the actual quality follows a different law. I would posit that physiologically the law is often linear, since the range of human physical capability is rather narrow. A physically strong human, who can lift 300lbs is, is not much stronger than a weak human, who can lift 30lbs. Whereas, mentally, the difference between an expert for whom an issue is a 5 minute estimate and a novice for whom an issue might take years or even be impossible, the difference is immense. This is basically because whereas the brain can store previous thoughts and combine them, the body can't store previous feats of strength and combine them e.g. lift 50lbs with one arm, 50lbs with the other, 200 lbs pull down, 300 lbs squat for a total of 600lbs at the same time ... not possible ... but the brain can combine 4 different ideas ... and then combine ideas of ideas, etc. In that way knowledge-based capacity is somewhat super-exponential in terms of the number of ideas but the complexity of the possible ideas are limited by the mental processing (raw g-factor).

Another issue is that lots of capabilities require maintenance to operate at a high level. Once a person maxes out (at age 25?) increasingly more time is spent on maintenance. E.g. to perform at nationally competitive levels one would have to make training a full time job just to stay there. Same problem mentally ... things that aren't used get forgotten.

[Legthorn Brownboat]

Ah, yes, I think I see what you’re saying now. Let me attempt to rephrase it in my terms. This is about ranking relative to others vs. concrete results. To continue the chess analogy: I could memorize one more chess opening. The relative advantage over my peers decreases as a root of the number of openings I previously knew (or log, if exponential instead of power, as I tend to think it is). However, in absolute measurements of number of chess openings known, I have increased by 1 with 1 more input, thus it’s linear. Now, there are mental synergies (think economies of scale if you prefer economics analogies) that come into play here, and can actually make it super-linear at times. If I know a few thousand chess openings, learning one more is probably easier for me now than it was when I only knew a dozen because my brain has been trained and conditioned for the task (economy of scale). If I learn to read one more move ahead, that skill synergies (in a small way) with reading ahead in other games because of exercising visual-spacial ability. This continues until you start to hit real physical limitations, such as when my brain and memory are fully saturated with nothing but chess openings.

You’re completely right. That adds to the value of the pursuit. Thanks for the clarification!


P.S.
"but the brain can combine 4 different ideas ... and then combine ideas of ideas, etc. In that way knowledge-based capacity is somewhat super-exponential” Petty quibble: I think what you described is the *definition* of exponential, and not super-exponential. I.e. it’s f(x) = k*(b^x), for constant k (the capacity of the number of ideas) and abstraction level x. b is the combination factor (4 in your example). Unless I’m missing something and you had a double/iterative/infinite/hyper-4-or-more exponential component in there. Sorry, not trying to distract, just thought there might a chance the distinction itself is interesting to think about.

[jacob]

It just depends on what property we're looking at.. Super-exponential means f(x)f(y)<=f(x+y) ... so if you can combine concepts to make them "bigger" before you apply them (using f() ), then you go further if you apply them on-the-fly, like f(x)*f(y).

E.g. person A might own the concepts of x and y and be able to use them with ability f(), but person B owns x, y, and x+y (three concepts) and if application is superexponential (which is a posit) then B can do more than A.

I think a lot of mental concepts are indeed superexponential. A person who knows a lot of different concepts can [in most fields---most complex fields] be more effective than a person who is simply faster.

BTW coming up with x+y based on x and y is the hard part here. I believe that there are only a limited (<100) such possible concepts that has been discovered. This is the lattice work philosophy/method.

Because I believe in that philosophy of mental orientation, it is also why I would rather spend my time learning new concepts than climbing the Pareto curve against other humans for a single concept.

[Legthorn Brownboat]

I see what you're saying. Where can I learn more about the lattice work philosophy/method? It sounds interesting, and could help me put a reason/methodology behind my random intellectual pursuits. I've always liked hearing wisdom/principles from other fields applied to the topic at hand.

I'm still going through the ERE book, but I don't remember it coming up, so my apologies if you mentioned it there. A quick Kindle search says "lattice" does not appear. You blog post in (1) references (2), do you recommend that book? I got distracted by all the Ayn Rand propaganda, but the article itself is interesting. I see the book is on your giant list of "Further Reading" but see no commentary. In the mean time, I'll start listening to Charlie Munger speeches. Thanks for the tip!

(1) http://earlyretirementextreme.com/highl ... odels.html
(2) http://capitalismmagazine.com/2006/05/a ... al-models/

[Legthorn Brownboat]

I just listened to Charlie Munger's (Warren Buffett's partner) talk on the "Psychology of Human Misjudgment" (1). It's a very interesting and entertaining talk of his about things behavioral and how psychological tendencies compound when multiple ones are present.

He seems to be philosophically like-minded with many here. In the Q/A after, he mentioned wanting to be rich only to have freedom, not just to be rich. He also advocates (at the very end) for a sort of intellectual Renaissance Man over over-specialization, what he calls "truffle hounds".

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqzcCfUglws


edit: never mind

[7Wannabe5]

I would posit that physiologically the law is often linear, since the range of human physical capability is rather narrow.

Yes, but it's clearly not linear in activities such as dance, which combine a great deal of physical capability with some amount of mental capability/creativity and/or emotional depth/expressiveness.

I also think that there is some component akin to "muscularity" engaged in activities/fields such as mathematics which are often conceived of as purely mental. Consider the juncture(s) where you move from thinking about math to reaching for pencil and paper maybe in combination with verbal communication with other(s.) I placed 8 beans in 8 bowls 8 times. Now I am exhausted with your concrete demands upon me. All you will get from me from now on is a^b. Memorize the location of the button on your scientific calculator if you must. I am experiencing deep empathy with any human who ever attempted to coach me towards performing a chin-up.

One thing I tell the many humans who complain about the new basic math algorithms being presented to their children is that much of the new math is towards creating algorithms that better model how the process/concept might be performed or visualized mentally.

I wonder what the coefficient on human capital would currently be?

Mark Twain (ENTP) explored this quite a bit in his works. Most obvious example being "The Prince and the Pauper." The extent to which a look-alike could fulfill your current functions might be a valid measure of human captial, obviously excepting for the value assigned to your physical appearance. Altering one's appearance while retaining one's other capabilities/perspective has also been frequent thought-experiment. For example, if you believe that racism is no longer a problem, how about experimenting with running your life with everything the same except for color of your skin. Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson" also involves assumed identity, in this case a child whose appearance is white, but is legally black.

Anyways, it's pretty obvious that we still don't uniformly assign value based on complexity or blind-justice meritocratic lifetime potential earnings in marketplace, because most Modern/Post-modern humans value their own household pets more than many other humans. And only a very, very small percentage of humans exhibit less mental complexity or market-valued skills than vast majority of dogs and virtually every cat. In fact, I would argue that most cats would be imprisoned for their crimes against songbirds if they were humans.