Zemblanity and Serendipity in Guardian and Trader Narratives

Zemblanity and Serendipity in Narrative Rationality

Venkatesh Rao

vgr@ribbonfarm.com

Refactor Camp, March 7, 2015

No tension Start tension Rising tension

Peak tension Falling tension

Tension resolved

?

?

What made the protagonist NOTICE the bomb?

Take a moment to imagine a fill-in-the-blank event

Basic question

Can narratives uncover new truths?

OR

Are they instrumental mnemonic structures at best? (Taleb)

Narrative Rationality (model developed in Tempo)

OR

Calculative Rationality (Behavioral Economics)

Narrative tension: audience torn between two or more possible emotional states corresponding to two or more possible outcomes

(S)he lives, we’re happy

(S)he dies, we’re sad

Hero(ine)

Increasing number of possible outcomes

Decreasing number of

possible outcomes

Notices with p1 <p <p2 chance of escaping

DelayT

Boom

…but has no chanceanyway, no time to act

Notices surprisingly early, with p>p2 chance of escaping

… plenty of options, time to behave optimally

…Notices too late, with p<p1 chance of escaping

Act of nature

E1: Bomb Planted E2: ?

Random Universe(no meaningful agency)

Causal Universe(no meaningful agency)

Real life(fair fighting chance)

Serendipity(surprisingly lucky)

Zemblanity(unsurprisingly unlucky)

NATURE of assumed universe in a narrative is implied by …

1. Delays between successive salient events2. Causal link between successive salient events

Delay T

E1: Bomb planted E2: ?

?

Behavioral economics concerns live here: Confirmation bias, survivorship bias, attribution error, analogical thinking, overfit patterns, just-so stories, rationalization

E3: Bomb discovered

Delay T

E1 E2

This is causation, no problem.

What about this?

Is 𝑷(𝑬𝟐|𝑬𝟏) within the realm of “normal”?

E2

?E3

?

Surprise(play)

Unsurprise(taxes)

Pleasant(life)

Unpleasant(death)

Serendipity

Zemblanity Bahramdipity*

Bahramdipity

Extraordinary sense of certain doom,

beyond data

Extraordinary sense of certain luck,

beyond data

* Bahramdipity: when a force suppresses serendipityThanks Morgan Sutherland for suggesting this 2x2

Winning side(Eg. Crony capitalism)

Losing side(startup killed by crony regulators)

Feel of a postproduct-market-fitstartup

On the way to deadpool

Certainty Surpluses

Subjective belief stronger than justified by known facts, analysis and probabilities.

• Serendipity is a positive certainty surplus (“I am charmed”)• Zemblanity is a negative certainty surplus (“I am doomed”)

Null Hypothesis

There is no such thing as serendipity or zemblanityCertainty surpluses are entirely in our heads

Eight Non-Mutually-Exclusive Accounts of Certainty Surpluses

1. False confidence: You’re an idiot (Dunning-Kruger effect)2. Black Swan: Your expectations are too narrowly calibrated3. Hidden Agency: Somebody really is conspiring for/against you4. Metis: Your behavior embodies existing tacit knowledge5. Causal illiteracy: You’re rediscovering known phenomena6. Comfort seeking: We like to feel certain of our beliefs7. Self-fulfilling prophecy: Belief creates serendipity/zemblanity8. Computation: You are discovering and using new things in real

time through storytelling before understanding them

“More than trial-and-error” hypothesis. Let’s explore this possibility

Certainty Surplus: Subjective belief stronger than justified by known facts, analysis and probabilities.

Competence Surplus: Luck-wrangling capabilities greater than accounted for by conscious and unconscious skills

Defensible data

Leap-of-faith pseudo-data

Occam’s Razor

Inspired abductive* reasoningOR

“Overfit”

Ugly fact ignored in favor of beautiful theory

* Neither deductive, nor inductive; what Sherlock Holmes does

Hypothesis: Serendipity depends on using open-world opportunity to create salience

http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/highly-distractible-people-have-more-creative-success

COMEDYMonty Python and the Holy GrailBlack Knight Sketch

TRAGEDY/DRAMACool Hand Luke Fight Scene

Zemblanity: Hopelessness of a Closed World

Two examples: what’s the difference?

Classical Tragedy and Comedy are both Zemblanity

• Difference #1: tragic hero is more skilled* than non-hero

• Difference #2: tragic hero knows he is doomed, comedic non-hero does not

(see: Steve Kaplan, The Hidden Tools of Comedy)

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.“ -- Heinlein

*Competent Man trope

Noble character plus fatal flaw (hamartia)

Tryst withdestiny arrives

False hope

False hope dashed

Face to face with death

RIP, zemblanityvalidated

Tragedy

Hopeless, dignified struggle

Happy go lucky fool thinks he’s blessed

Unexpected luck

False hope

Realization of other side

of bargain

Undignified struggle to

prevail

Realizes it’s over, rationalizes back to cheer

Back to old life or worse,

zemblanityvalidated

Comedy

Key Classical Distinction: Dignity of Struggle, not Outcome

Roll the dice after skill exhausted: Cut the green wire: Dignified skilled gamble that goes wrong

Do something wild, like throwing bomb in ketchup:Undignified, unskilled, not-even-wrong action

Roll the dice after skill exhausted; cut the blue wire: Dignified skilled gamble that goes right

Meditatively accept death: Dignified non-action

Scream: Undignified non-action

Figure out that the blue wire must be cut: Dignified skilled, correct action

But what if it works?

Do something wild, like throwing bomb in ketchup:Undignified, unskilled, not-even-wrong action

“Wild, not-even-wrong” is not “Random”

Right Wrong Not even wrong

Right Wrong Not even wrong

A tessellation metaphor: traveling from red to green

Sidebar for Deleuze and Guattari fans (can safely ignore):

• Right and wrong actions are striated with respect to a mental model

• Not-even-wrong actions are smooth with respect to a mental model

Sidebar for John Boyd fans (can safely ignore):

• Right and wrong actions operate within an orientation

• Not-even-wrong actions reorient to get inside the decision cycle of an orientation

Portals: where not-even-wrong actions in one world are

deterministically meaningful in another

Serendipity/Zemblanity zones: where not-even-wrong actions in

one world are unpredictably meaningful in another

What if two tessellations are partially co-extensive?

The Freytag Triangle is an approximation of this…

Middle Earth Rules

Sauron-Ascendant Rules

Age-of-Man Rules

Shared notion of “Sacred”

Profane/Opposed notion of “Sacred”

WHY are classical narratives zemblanitous?

• change-is-profane mental models and…• … a restoration-of-sacredness imperative

Sacred Sacred

Increasing Profanity Restoration

Peak Transient Profanity

1. Classical narratives are GUARDIAN (Jane Jacobs) narratives2. They are about restoring a sacred social order3. About cherished values prevailing, not new discoveries

Expanding possibilities MUST be followed by shrinking possibilities

Shrinking possibilities feel ZEMBLANITOUS

What makes non-classical narratives exceptional?

Serendipity requires continuously expanding universe of possibilities

You can get luckier than you think through dynamics you have encountered but not grokked yet

Side view: the Freytag staircase (see Tempo)

1. “To infinity and beyond!” feel2. Endless adventures, no return3. Like science/technology/innovation4. COMMERCE narratives (Jane Jacobs)

In the tessellation metaphor…

Increasing complexity, variety, aperiodicity, randomness of tessellation

Progressively less “escaped” realities*

*See: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/01/16/on-the-design-of-escaped-realities/

Technical bunnytrail: 2013 PhD thesis, “Computational Complexity and Decidability of Tileability”, Jed Yang, UCLA. http://www.math.ucla.edu/~pak/papers/Yang-thesis.pdf

Are there such narratives?

https://vimeo.com/2113477

Yes!

Adult “Restoration of

Sacredness” Skills

Classical storytelling

What might non-classical storytelling skills look like?

• Necessarily more comic than tragic• “Unreasonable effectiveness of wild actions”• Hitchhiker’s Guide

Comic Book Exercise

1. We will use a template based on bomb example

2. Self-identify as artist or scriptwriter and pair up

3. Decide broad story parametersa) Serendipity or Zemblanity for hero/heroine (or villain)?

b) Are characters Guardian or Trader?

c) Comic or Tragic? (right/wrong/not-even-wrong action?)

4. Brainstorm an inspired, abductive overfit to filled-in frames

5. Storyboard till you get a story you like

6. Draw, letter and ink the final version like a stick-figure pro

7. Turn in to a facilitator for inclusion in Refactor Camp 2015 comicbook