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Zemblanity and Serendipity in Narrative Rationality
Venkatesh Rao
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?
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
