How to enjoy fail attempts without self-deception (technique)

post by YanLyutnev (YanLutnev) · 2025-03-30T13:49:23.793Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

Contents

  ratio-technique: gamification of failures
    what problem does the technique solve:
    what you'll get if you train this technique:
    here's my model of how this mechanism works:
    what my proposed technique does:
      before voicing the essence of the mental technique, I will demonstrate that it works not only on me but on all people who can enjoy computer or board games.
      gamification techniques are based on this principle
      "fantasizing that the key is in this pocket -> not fulfilled -> unpleasant sensation
      "fantasizing that I'm looking for the value of an currently unknown variable "key in pocket" (0 or 1) -> no key -> the value of the variable is now known, that is, 0 instead of ? -> guaranteed pleasant sensation from the fact that your task of finding out the value of an unknown variable is solved."
      will I get less joy from finding the key result with this technique?
    important superstructure that must be fulfilled for the technique to work
    ONCE AGAIN THE ALGORITHM OF THE "GAMIFICATION OF FAILURES" TECHNIQUE VISUALLY:
    When the technique will harm:
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this is a technique from my future book on applied rationality. write comments to influence its content and correct something

ratio-technique: gamification of failures

epistemic status: worked for me on those tasks where there was systematic irritation. now I get anticipation.

what problem does the technique solve:

allows you to quickly and reversibly obtain a series of pleasant sensations from solving a task with a low probability of success, where without this technique you would have received a series of irritations from unsuccessful attempts

Definitions (what I'm looking at) from this article (overloads the brain, the rest of the article is not like this)

Pleasure - many neurotransmitters are mostly stimulated in the brain across the entire membrane surface by a bunch of neurotransmitters - dopamine, serotonin, etc.

Failure - expectation to experience activation of a specific neural chain in the near future, and it was not activated subsequently

Self-deception - creating a neural chain linked to the state of physical world objects and consciously transferring the activation of neural chains in such a way that the coupling of "created connections - object state" either does not exist or exists by a different rule

these definitions obviously won't match yours. this is my attempt to formalize down to the cellular level. now you roughly know where I'm looking, and without definitions, you would have had to guess, and as you can see, you would NOT have guessed. always please.

what you'll get if you train this technique:

conscious ability to farm pleasant sensations from situations where multiple unsuccessful attempts to do something are expected. this mode can be easily turned on and easily turned off.

(real life story)

I didn't sleep well in the morning, was tired at the end of the day and wanted to go to bed. I come to the apartment, anticipating lying down and watching a series. And it turns out that I forgot my keys.

I was holding the goal of lying in bed watching a series in my attention and expectations. I can't get into the apartment without a key or a battering ram or an explosive device.

Goal - activation of a neural chain, perceived as "holding in attention" of an object

I got upset. I expected stress relief (tension in the back, receptor stimulation), but got an expectation of even more energy expenditure.

Now I'm very interested in finding the keys in other pockets and backpack. Because as soon as the keys are found, it means my stress will be gone soon. My receptors will be stimulated by the series, which will remove the pain and give a pleasant sensation.

an ordinary person without the technique I propose in this article would want to find the keys in the backpack or pockets and each time not finding them, their irritation would increase.

not finding the keys either in the backpack or in the pockets he will get upset (an unpleasant sensation in the head)

here's my model of how this mechanism works:

  1. desire to eliminate the expected unpleasant sensation in the future (searching > for the key instead of lying in bed)
  2. finding a way to transition to this state faster (find the key)
  3. activation of neural connections inside the brain that model the key, its properties and possible places where it might be (fantasizing about where the key could be)
  4. creating a passive expectation that if you're looking for a key in a specific place, it lies there (background expectation that the key is in the pocket)
  5. if it turns out that the key is not there, an unpleasant sensation

what my proposed technique does:

my technique allows changing the unpleasant sensation in point 5 to a pleasant sensation by changing the parameter in point 4 "passive expectation that the key lies"

before voicing the essence of the mental technique, I will demonstrate that it works not only on me but on all people who can enjoy computer or board games.

gamification techniques are based on this principle

in a computer game, the feeling of irritation from failure depends on what goal you were holding in attention.

showing the difference between what I call passive and active attention holding:

Active attention: I want to open this chest and I will take actions to open it. I want to defeat monsters to open the chest. No matter how many monsters appear, I will defeat them all, and won't stop until the chest is open. The chest is in my attention. If someone asks me why I'm chopping monsters, I can easily answer that it's to open the chest.

Passive attention: I do actions automatically, actions by habit flow from one to another. I act as I acted in the game 3 hours ago - killing monsters and opening chests. But if you ask me at the moment of chopping monsters why I'm chopping them, I'll say "well, I don't know, just passing through, chopping". The chest is not in attention, however, I behave as if the chest is my goal, even if I'm acting habitually. If new monsters appear, I'll chop them too, and won't leave the chest after chopping. However, from the first-person perspective, I don't feel that the chest is my goal. It's not in active attention, although it was in it the first few times.

if you translate the game mode of dodging projectiles into active attention, you will receive pleasant sensations from achieving the goal - dodging all projectiles. because if you don't dodge, then your other passive goal - stimulating your receptors with neurotransmitters during the game - will be interrupted by a death screen, which sharply reduces stimulation and causes a light "pain" of receptors (the flow of neurotransmitters has weakened). you don't want the pain from the death screen and long loading, so you dodge.

but as soon as you switch to the achievement mode "get hit by projectiles 50 times", suddenly getting hit by projectiles starts to bring pleasure, because you're holding getting hit as a goal.

or if in a board game you want to get a card - you passively imagine that it continues to remain with you, and if this is not subsequently fulfilled, you get irritation.

but as soon as you translate the expectation that you want to get rid of this card, now everything is the opposite - getting rid of the card will entail a pleasant sensation

focus of attention AFFECTS THE expectation of a certain experience which AFFECTS THE sensation

if you're counting twos, then seeing twos will give you a pleasant sensation. if you're counting threes, then not seeing threes will give you an unpleasant sensation. you can self-modify in the other direction, but most people work like this by default.

let's return to the keys - the essence of the technique is to replace the thought process:

"fantasizing that the key is in this pocket -> not fulfilled -> unpleasant sensation

with

"fantasizing that I'm looking for the value of an currently unknown variable "key in pocket" (0 or 1) -> no key -> the value of the variable is now known, that is, 0 instead of ? -> guaranteed pleasant sensation from the fact that your task of finding out the value of an unknown variable is solved."

the technique involves consciously creating a new task - that is, it involves switching from passive expectation to active attention for the sake of a pleasant sensation afterwards.

at the same time, the goal of finding the key is not affected at all, and productivity in searching does not decrease due to the search process becoming more reinforcing due to the influx of dopamine at the moment of searching, where in passive mode you only had irritation with each new check.

people who know how to enjoy computer games experience anticipation when taking a new quest. a quest is like a new task in active attention. why not do the same operation, but with each new pocket when searching for a key?

but the task has changed - now we are not looking for the expected soon experience of finding the key in this particular pocket we're rummaging through (because if it's not in any pocket, we won't get this pleasant experience in the near future for sure)

now we are looking for the value of the unknown variable "key is/key is not"

it is assumed that for most people this is the default habit, but if not, then you need to impose stress on the uncertainty of variable X

until I've searched the left pocket, the variable is unknown. we humans are lucky to farm pleasant sensations for such tasks - because uncertainty by default is already followed by an unpleasant sensation. if this were not the case, this technique would not work. and also the creators of board and computer games would go bankrupt with the current quests.

model the pockets as X (unknown variable). now, checking each pocket, you translate the unknown variable into 0 or 1, where 0 means no key, and 1 means the key is there.

since X for you is uncertainty and an unpleasant sensation, after checking, the variable 0 became definite. you gained control, you gained knowledge that there's no key in the pocket. you completed your mini-goal that you actively held in attention. you got dopamine in your head for this. by checking other pockets and translating all unknown variables into known ones, you got even more dopamine.

the alternative - you do as before, you set in the active goal that soon you'll feel the key in the pocket. you're not looking for the variable value. you're looking for the soon expected sensory experience. your task is not solved - you don't get dopamine for a solved task.

you'll still feel joy when you find the key, because the pain in your back will go away when you lie down.

will I get less joy from finding the key result with this technique?

answer: slightly yes, this is an exchange where you lose the intensity of receptor stimulation at the moment of finding the key for pleasant sensations during the unsuccessful search. choose for yourself what result you want.

since suffering during an unsuccessful search lasts much longer in time than stimulation during finding, I chose this technique and went for the current exchange

if you say joy follows the rule of "sensation of transfer from low-stimulated receptors to high-stimulated", then during an unsuccessful key search using this technique, you're already stimulating receptors with dopamine, they already hurt less and therefore the sharp release of neurotransmitters when finding the key will not be as sharp. however, this may not be critical for you.

I called this technique gamification of failures. during games, you stimulate your receptors with neurotransmitters that feel like pleasant sensations if you hold a chosen goal in active attention. this technique offers the same - you set yourself a new goal - model each key search attempt as a variable with an unknown value, and you learn the variable, getting certainty.

important superstructure that must be fulfilled for the technique to work

if you learned the value of the variable "no key", and it's 0, you need to develop a habit of not transferring attention from 0 to "but I don't like 0", followed by translation into an unpleasant sensation.

this thought pattern needs to be blocked for our task of getting a pleasant sensation. any phrase like "but I don't like it when the result is 0" is a physical process of creating a new neural chain and consciously activating it. if the neural chain is used often, it can become an automatic first-flowing association by habit.

and for this technique, we need the pleasant sensation after learning the variable to not switch. we need the chain to be "completed". otherwise, the entire technique is for naught.

fortunately, it's enough to just create a habit of not transferring attention to other thoughts after "learned the variable value - woohoo" so that the process in the future goes by habit automatically in this form.

ONCE AGAIN THE ALGORITHM OF THE "GAMIFICATION OF FAILURES" TECHNIQUE VISUALLY:

  1. You predict that you will soon perform a series of actions with an uncertain outcome and low chances of success
  2. Instead of holding the pleasant outcome in passive attention after each attempt, you transfer active attention to the mode "with each attempt I find out the value of an unknown variable. right now it is unknown, and holding uncertainty in attention is unpleasant" (if it's pleasant, you need to create a habit for this technique so that it is unpleasant. this is a standard mode for uncertainty not only for humans but also for animals, it's just simple)
  3. If the attempt fails - you rejoice that you eliminated uncertainty and learned the value of the variable, whatever it may be. To help yourself rejoice, model an alternative universe where you are still in uncertainty, but the value is still 0. Rejoice that you are not experiencing hope that it's 1, but know that it's 0. Where you would have experienced hope, your predictions would have been distorted, which could have led to disappointments or troubles.
  4. Now you have more dopamine from the unsuccessful attempt and less cortisol. If unpleasant sensations interfered with further attempts - congratulations, you have received a tool to increase productivity for further attempts due to a more pleasant sensation for new attempts.

When the technique will harm:

When for the required task or maximized parameter, you need to maximize irritation, not a pleasant sensation. The task of finding keys seems not to be such - irritation rather hinders brainstorming new hypotheses about where the keys are than helps.

Often people are "slaves" to the irritation strategy, in terms of not even considering another option. But for another option, you already need neural connections with a fixed algorithm. Now you have this algorithm. Tested by me personally on different tasks - it works.

[examples of applying this technique in other contexts]{.underline}:

previously, I had uncertainty, or false certainty about how many times I needed to apply to make the variable "get a job" equal to one. now, instead of uncertainty about the last attempt, I got certainty. this value is 0. now I imagine a universe where this value of X exists. earlier I imposed stress on uncertainty because uncertainty worse predicts than certainty (provided that certainty is coupled with reality)

learning this variable allowed me to better calibrate in order to change the strategy in the future.

once I was solving the task as quickly as possible to see the desired result in the form of perfect dough. this was 5 seconds ago, but now I changed the task - the current task is to find out whether the variable "perfect dough" will be equal to 1 if I do a certain sequence of actions. no, the current sequence of actions did not lead to one. but the alternative to this is still uncertainty. now I have certainty, it will allow me to better predict the future. I like the universe where I have certainty more than uncertainty.

previously, I had uncertainty, or false certainty, that the variable "under circumstances X she definitely won't break up with me" = 1. I was wrong, under circumstances X she broke up with me. I clarified my belief. looking back, I'm glad that now I'm calibrated to reality more strongly. my predictions are more accurate in the universe where I definitely know that under circumstances X she breaks up with me. in the universe where I'm still experiencing illusions about this, I predict worse. My next actions take into account this calibration.

I remind you, this technique is applied during attempts to solve a task, not after the attempts are completed.

if applied after, there will be what is called self-deception, that is, the patterns by which irritation manifested in the past will be distorted

by doing this technique during attempts, you directly affect the causality of sensations. now it's not a distortion, but an intervention. you change the rule.

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