2009.03/25 On The Salience Of Public Commitment
FROM A NOTION YANKED FROM MY BUTT ON MY BIRTHDAY. HUZZAH!
INTRODUCTION: THINK AND GROW RICH
I'm reading a great book right now that I wish I had read twenty years ago.
It's called "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill originally published in
1937, and is apparently the granddaddy of all self-improvement books. I'm
reading the edition revised by Arthur Pell and it simply kicks butt. Some
chapters alone are worth more than entire other books I've read. It
comprehensively talks about all the pieces necessary for success, and in
particular makes specific connections between our inner and outer worlds. In
fact, the guiding premise of the book is that by shaping our thoughts and
desires carefully we can make worldly wealth a foregone conclusion.
Unfortunately, the description of how this happens leaves something to be
desired. Here's some quotes from the book: "Thoughts which are mixed with
any of the feelings or emotion constitute a magnetic force that attracts,
from the vibrations of the ether, other similar or related thoughts." He
also describes the wonderfully Aristotlean view that "thoughts set up
vibrations" that the "Infinite Intelligence of the universe" "clothes in their
physical equivalent". Uummm, yaaah.
I've come across this principle numerous times and once created an entire
philosophy called the Practical Approach to Living that detailed the
Actualization process: how to convert desires into physical reality.
However, in all my wanderings I've never seen a cogent or even reasonable
description of the mechanism. The principle is sound, and it works; that
much is demonstrable. But explanations of the "magnetic thoughts" phenomena
often devolve into mystic mumbo jumbo.
Anyhoo, what I'm attempting in this essay is to describe that mechanism, in
particular, how proper passionate thinking creates what we perceive as luck
by harnessing ambient social energy on our behalf. Along the way we'll also
discover that there are natural equilibrium points to the spectrum of choice.
Oh, and since no essay of mine would be complete without _some_ kind of
sexual reference, it will also put my heretofore seemingly irrational
commitment to monogamy into a rational perspective.
PRELUDE: POLYAMORY VS MONOGAMY
I have a number of polyamorous friends that have, on occasion, tried to
entice me to the lifestyle. Some have tried to convince me by proposing the
optimality problem: after all, they argue, having more options
(i.e. potential partners and possible relationships) must always be better
than having less. Some ladies take a more direct approach, saying they would
"try monogamy" with me since I seem to be serious about it; this, of course,
is nothing more than an extension of their basic polyamorous philosophy of
maximizing their option space. And altogether, most of them can't fathom
how a sexy, available, intelligent man like myself would choose _not_ to have
a polyamorous lifestyle, or at least to fool around while I'm waiting for my
mate to appear.
It's always been my belief that monogamy is a positive choice, and during
these conversations I've been mostly unable to describe the basis for my
intuitions. My gut feeling tells me: monogamy isn't something you try, it's
something you commit to. There is real, tangible benefit to monogamy that
can't be found in polyamory. And most importantly, it is the very premise of
publically adopting it before entering a relationship that makes it so
powerful.
One of my recent essays
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~kel/TEK/2006.02.26_Innocence.shtml
showed me quite starkly that I'd never really thought about the topic of
commitment before. This is perhaps somewhat revealing, because commitment
has been an _implicit ingredient_ for me in everything I do. If I am going
to do something, I'm going to do it whole hog, with gusto, and with every
fiber of my being. After reading Think and Grow Rich, I now realize that
my committed passionate thinking is one of the sources of my success in
life.
How does that work precisely? Let's find out.
FRIENDS OF FRIENDS
A civilized person exists within an environment filled with other people.
Our ability to influence the physical world largely flows from our ability to
flourish socially. After all, physically speaking, a single person can only
exert so much energy per unit time, and the real world tasks we wish to do
often require a much greater energy input than that. We create tools in the
physical world that give us "mechanical advantage", which is a way to say
that we _amplify our natural energy output onto a much larger scale_ in a
directed fashion.
Let's propose a crazy premise at this point. What if the vast majority of
our influence on the physical world came from the social environment, and
_not_ from what we personally have produced? What if the amount of energy
that a single organism could expend in the most efficient way possible was
dwarfed by the amount of energy being spent randomly by ambient organisms
in a haphazard way? What if the lion's share of the things that have
happened to us in life has been a side effect of the mechanisms of that
social environment, and _not_ by our direct action?
It turns out that we can prove this premise (from both a pure physics and
social science perspective) but that would take us far afield. Supposing it
were true... then how do we create "social advantage"? How do we leverage
the latent energy in the social environment to amplify our piddly personal
energy output onto a larger scale in a directed fashion? There are many many
ways to do this; let's focus on the goodwill of friends of friends. Namely,
that friends want to help you out, and that their friend help them to do it.
SPECIFIC SELECTION MATCHES BETTER AND MORE ROBUSTLY THAN GENERAL SELECTION
Suppose you were looking for a job and you asked all your friends for help.
Let's consider two different cases. In case 1, you reason that you maximize
your chances of getting a job by keeping yourself as wide open to as many
different opportunities as possible. So you tell your friends: "I'm looking
for a job, any job. I'm willing to do anything." In case 2, you reason
that you maximize your chances of getting what you want by doing something
you like and are good at. So you tell your friends: "I'm looking for a job.
I want to continue doing porn; my dream would be to star for Vivid Videos
doing DVDA." :-)
Now consider the conversations that we rarely ever see, namely those between
our friends _on our behalf_ and their friends. You and your job hunt happen
to come up. Here's how the two different conversations might run:
Case 1:
F: "Yah, he's looking for a job. Any job. He'll do anything."
FoF: "What does he do?"
F: "Lots of things. His last job was blah blah."
FoF: "Well, I'll keep it in mind."
End Result: Not much is likely to happen.
Case 2:
F: "Yah, he's looking for a job. He wants to make porn movies."
FoF: "Really?"
F: "Seriously. He's made several already, and specializes in DVDA. His
lifelong dream is to work for Vivid Videos."
FoF: "Hey! I was just talking with a stripper friend of mine who mentioned
that they needed some DVDA specialists for a shoot this weekend."
F: "Wow, we should put them in touch!"
End Result: Any latent match will quickly be uncovered the _more specific_
that it is
We associate _specific_ things faster than general things; that's just the
way our minds work. It's one thing to want a job. It's another to want to
be an undertaker specializing in car crash victims. Anyone who heard the
latter has it indelibly stamped on their minds, and the next time they hear
anything remotely like it, they are going to make an association. We are
bombarded with information all the time, and when we pick out artifacts from
our sensory environment it's called _salience_. Specific, distinctive
sensations are more salient than general, oft-repeated ones. Specific
passionate commitments are more salient than general intense desire.
SPECIFICITY YIELDS GREATER RETURNS FOR LESS EFFORT THAN GENERALITY
Let's take another (less facetious) example. Consider that you are applying
to grad schools. In case 1, you just want to get into any grad school doing
mathematics. In case 2, you want to study discrete mathematics with an eye
toward extending loop quantum gravity. Here's the application interviews you
might have.
Case 1: Applies to 20 colleges with good math depts
Y: "I want to study mathematics at your grad school."
I: "What problem do you want to work on?"
Y: "I don't know yet."
I: "That's okay. It often takes years for a student to find their niche."
End Result: You get into some schools, denied by others, and choose among
them according to some other criteria. You have, by definition, an average
grad school experience.
Case 2: Applies to 3 colleges, only those with strong math and physics depts
I: "What problem do you want to work on?"
Y: "I'm increasing fascinated by loop quantum gravity. I feel it is a more
accurate view of the universe and offers the possibility of uniting
relativity and quantum mechanics. I want to develop greater tools in
discrete mathematics on par with real analysis in order to extend loop
quantum gravity."
I: "Well, we have the world's best discrete mathematicians as well as a
strong physic department."
Y: "I know. That's why I'm applying here."
I: "Say, I want to introduce you to X. He's working on a similar
problem..."
End Result: You get into exactly the school that you want, doing exactly the
problem you want, and quickly get introduced to the paragons in the field.
You have an above average grad school experience.
The general student had to evaluate and pursue 20 different options in order
to obtain one average outcome, whereas the specific student could quickly
evaluate 20, only pursue 3, and obtains an above average outcome. He spent
less effort and got a better result. This is very much in line with Adam
Smith's observations about the advantages of specialization in market
economies. So one way to interpret our grad student comparison is as the
advantage of focus, i.e. the focused student produces more because he spends
his personal energy more efficiently.
COINCIDENTAL LUCK CAN BE DELIBERATELY CULTIVATED
But a completely different insight to draw from our grad student parable is
_the generation of luck_. The latter student is going to have more high
quality opportunities come his way because of the way the social environment
works. A friend will spot a posting for a talk on loop quantum gravity and
tell him about it. A professor, impressed by his enthusiasm, will help him
get papers published. He'll be the first person to get invited to that
discrete mathematics conference. The big point here is that all these
opportunities come his way _because of his definite commitment_ and _without
his personal expenditure of energy_. Of course, he has to work hard to
actually succeed in school in order to accomplish his stated goal, but that
was energy he was _already going to spend_. The point is that the social
environment is what is actually bringing luck his way, cost free to him.
Now let's envision what happens to our latter grad student over time. If he
continues to increase his specificity, delving into deeper and deeper
problems within his chosen realm, then a kind of _directed network_ evolves
within the social environment. His ideas get presented to exactly the people
who are interested in them, who are most often the people who can offer him
_higher quality opportunities_. At a certain point, once he's become
established as "that loop quantum gravity math fanatic", then lucky
coincidences will happen for him with _no further effort on his part_. If he
chooses to exert effort to create opportunities, he can do so with minimal
effort because he's _already plugged into the social network most likely to
help him_ do what he wants to do.
This is very much the point that Hill is trying to make in Think and Grow
Rich. When we commit ourselves publically, invest ourselves in making
something happen, then _that alone_ sets the wheels in motion in the social
environment to generate opportunities that we usually perceive as "luck".
So, how do we further increase the luck that comes our way? There are many
ways, and Hill himself describes some of them. Perhaps the most important
are the deliberate building of both a sterling reputation and the "Master
Mind" group (a particular social network Hill endorses).
This is a pithy topic by itself, and can be found in several other places
(most clearly in the book "Creativity" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). But
let's stay on target and return to our original thought-reality connection
phenomena. What qualities of thought increase the luck created?
SALIENCE IS INCREASED BY A PRIORI PUBLIC COMMITMENT
Now suppose you are on the other end, say an employer looking to hire someone
as a chemical plant safety manager. Suppose you have a pool of people all
of whom could probably do the job. What would increase your preference of
hiring one person over another? Alternatively, what would make you notice
one more over another?
Well, first off, applicants will write anything in their objectives (usually
what they think the employer wants to hear) so that can't really be trusted
as an indicator of what they want. It would be nice to know that the
candidate actually cared about safety _well before they applied for this
job_. A long standing history of previous safety and chemical jobs might fit
that bill. This is more than just ensuring they have the right skill set;
it's a kind of _verification of past sincerity_.
In addition, if during the interview the applicant displayed a _burning
desire_ to do exactly what the job entailed, then that would dramatically
increase your preference for them. Passionate people are self-motivated,
require less management, and are proactive in making long-term improvements.
This is more than just ensuring they'll do a good job; it's a kind of
_assurance of future enthusiasm_.
That means that to increase your chances of being hired by exactly the
employer you would want, you want to display an _a priori public commitment_.
That's to prospective employers, your friends, and the random person you
chatted with on the bus. Moreover, the longer you prominently discuss and
display your commitment, the greater you align the social environment to work
in your favor. People who make specific, public commitments get noticed,
commented on, and automagically connected to other people with the same
specific commitments.
VERIFIABLE ORNAMENTATION INCREASES ENERGY INVESTMENT BY OTHERS
Let us further explore things from the perspective of others, the people that
know you or know of you. It's interesting to note that the main qualities
that make our passionate commitments salient to other people do so because
they are a _shorthand way for others to rapidly verify their classification
of us_. This is highly remiscent of signaling theory and biological
ornaments. After all, in the real world, deception is a valid strategy, and
anything that helps other people gain confidence that we a) are who we say we
are and b) will do what we say we'll do _increases the net efficiency of
social interaction_, in particular, the _probable benefit to them_.
This is a crucial concept, so let's restate it in another way. People who
employ deception are aiming for the _win-lose_ situation: they get what they
want, usually at your expense. Basically, they use their energy to take the
fruits of your energy. People who employ commitment are aiming for the
_win-win_ situation: they get what they want, _and_ you get what you want.
They want to use their energy so that everyone benefits, including
themselves. That means that the greater the confidence you have that someone
is not employing deception and / or is actually emotionally vested, the
higher the probability that _energy you spend on them will benefit you_.
Now let's consider the game theory view. Every time we spend energy on
someone else, there is a possibility that they are going to consume that
energy in a fashion other than the way we intended. The more independent
assurance we have that someone is committed to a course of action, the more
confident we become that our energy spent on their behalf results in what we
expect. That means that, probabilistically speaking, a history of _honorable
commitment increases the energy other people are willing to invest in us_,
both the likelihood and the magnitude of energy expenditure. Moreover, in
the best case win-win situation it was energy they wanted to spend in that
manner anyway, because it also benefits them. Other people _make investments
in us_ the more passionate we are about our commitments. This makes us more
_predictable and reliable_ than other comparable investments that might
otherwise be made.
CREATE WIN-WIN ALIGNMENT, NOT WIN-LOSE EXPLOITATION
Why do people spend energy on each other at all? Recall our crazy
proposition that the ambient energy of people around us is orders of
magnitude larger than our own personal energy. This means that, if we can
harness even a small fraction of that flow, then we have effectively
amplified our personal energies, creating "social advantage". Every organism
wants to do this, so we are all (unconsciously) employing strategies to expend
our personal energy in a way that brings us more energy back from the social
environment. Reciprocity and Leadership are examples of direct kinds of
strategies, while Karma and Pay-It-Forward are examples of indirect kinds of
strategies.
I want to stress that what I'm proposing is _not_ manipulating people, or
making them do your bidding, or trying to "steal" their energies. Scheming,
coercion, and theft are certainly strategies some people employ to get access
to other people's energies, and they all have the feature of _using other
people's energies in a way they wouldn't choose_. What passionate commitment
does is clarify and _align energy that was already going to be spent_ in a
way other people want to spend it. You and your job hunt were already going
to come up in conversation: specificity merely makes that event more
productive. That grad school _wants_ focused students exactly like you; that
employer wishes every employee was as skilled and passionate as you are. The
energy is already being spent, often randomly: what we are doing is creating
a momentary alignment of it in the direction we (and the other people we
match) actually want. That's the true power of the win-win: spending our
energies slightly differently so that more people get more of what they want.
Not expending more energy, just using it more wisely.
Btw, in iron there are very small regions called domains where all the atoms
are "pointed" in the same direction, creating a local magnetic field. On the
larger scale, that field gets cancelled out because the domains are
disorganized, having no net effect. However, if you put iron next to a
magnet and rap it, then it momentarily aligns many of the domains, making the
piece of iron magnetic. It brings to the fore an energy that was already
there latent in the iron, but unharnessed because it was previously
haphazardly arranged.
So specific, passionate, committed thoughts are like... a magnetic force that
attracts... from the social environment... other similar people... or
related thoughts. Crazy huh? The mystic mumbo jumbo is actually a pretty
good description after all. ;-)
SUMMARY: THE BASIC FORMULA, FIRST DRAFT
To harness the latent energy of your social environment, create salient
desires that are:
1) Specific. Touches of bold and exotic also help increase distinctiveness.
2) Public. Advertise your intent far and wide, and empower others to also.
3) Passionate. Be committed to your cause and making it come about.
Moreover, enhance the social advantage created by deliberately building:
4) A glowing reputation for doing what you say you will
5) A group of like minded successful individuals
6) A win-win approach toward every interaction
FUTURE WORK: CAMBRIAN AND PERMIAN DUALITIES
Let's talk about the tradeoffs between monogamy and polygamy. Specificity to
the exclusion of other options is more efficient when a priori preferences
are known. That means that, if you know exactly what you want, a
monogamy-esque strategy will get it for you faster and more robustly than a
option-hedging strategy will. Moreover, a polyamory-esque approach incurs
hidden costs in evaluation, pursuit, and maintenance. In a very real way,
the power of monogamy comes from what it avoids even considering, which
leaves energy and attention available for other things.
On the flipside, if preferences are not known in advance, then a polyamorous
approach offers the greatest exploration of option space in the least amount
of time. That means that, if you are uncertain what you want, a
play-the-field strategy leads to a larger breadth of opportunities than a
long-term-commitment strategy will. Moreover, a monogamy-esque approach
incurs opportunity costs, as the time taken to pursue depth in one option
usually precludes further experimentation with other options.
Two points of interest arise. First, when faced with a new situation the
combination of an initial option-expanding strategy followed by a subsequent
option-eliminating strategy seems to be optimal in some intuitive way.
That's exactly the cambrian and permian cycles Kuhn described in The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and it is precisely the same paradigm
followed by numerous other systems. I'm certain that a Consilience class
principle can be proven here.
Second, it appears that these two strategies form a natural duality, insofar
as admixtures of the two strategies are usually suboptimal to one or the
other pure strategy alone. Therefore there are natural equilibrium states to
choice strategies, or stated mathematically, attractor poles in their phase
space. That means that we've dramatically constrained the form that any
mathematical model of these strategies could take, perhaps to a small enough
set we could profitably start writing them down.
CLOSING THOUGHTS: STILL MONOGAMY BABY
I think I'm finally at a point where I can espouse concretely why monogamy is
a better choice for me. I want the best possible relationship I can have
with my mate. I know exactly what I'm looking for and why it's important.
When I start my relationship, I want to be a good investment of my mate's
energy from day one. She should be able to pour herself into me with total
confidence that her love will be amplified and returned to her. That
aspect is often lost in the self-centered arguments of maximizing options.
Part of why I'm monogamous is because it is going to make _my partner's life_
a lot easier.
Moreover, I don't want either of us to misspend our energies on distractions
that don't benefit us both. It's been my observation that most polyamorous
relationships shine briefly and then last perhaps a few years at best. I
want a relationship that shines for years, growing ever brighter, until death
do us part. From the nuts and bolts hard financial perspective: polyamory
has a inherent cap on amortized return, whereas monogamy does not. And I
strive only to make wise investments.
Anyhoo, that's why I'm committed to monogamy still. Not "trying it", not
using it as a strategy to get women into bed, _passionately committed_ to
it.
So one of you friends out there, find me my mate, will ya? ;-P