On Mistakes

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind?
They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.
    — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

A few weeks ago Jen and I were discussing my outlook on life. She has noticed that I tend to get very worked up and nervous at times where a decision needs to be made and the choice isn’t clear. You may think that this is perfectly normal, but I get worked up even over inconsequential decisions like whether to go to a movie or to rent one. The question is: why am I like this?

The answer: I do not like to make mistakes.

More specifically, I don’t like to make planning errors. I live in fear of them. My biggest worry is that I will look back on a decision and realise that if I had made a different choice I could have prevented some bad outcome. Again, my obsession with mistakes is revealed by what counts as a bad outcome; it is a serious problem if I use shirts and shorts in the wrong order and wind up with a pair that doesn’t go at the end of the week. (The previous principal clause should not be interpreted as an endorsement of my fashion sense.)

In order to understand why I don’t like these kinds of mistakes, I have been thinking about what I see as the essential qualities of me. Now, I was an old-school computer programmer from the start. (I decided when I was in kindergarden that I would do pretty much exactly what I am doing now.) It would not be an exaggeration to say that the essential function of a computer programmer is to think through a course of action very clearly in order to achieve exactly the desired outcome, with contingencies for all possible errors along the way. I am an uncompromising computer programmer; in some sense this approach to accomplishing things has come to take over my entire life, not just the digital part of it. In some ways I have become a human programmer of myself. Based on my conversation with Jen I now feel sure that this aspect of my personality is at the heart of my feelings about making mistakes.

Now your average guy is averse to making errors because he knows that he will feel very stuck if he gets into a bad situation and that he will wish fervently that he had seen it coming. The average guy, however, feels that the essential aspects of himself do not include a highly reliable preplanning system which avoids all errors. Thus, the average guy feels bad about making a mistake, but this does not necessarily affect his self-image.

In this case I am not the average guy. As a computer scientist I follow logical principles in planning and analysis of situations, and this carries over into the human programming side of my personality. Accordingly, a mistake not only carries the practical consequences of the error, it provides logical counter-evidence to an argument that says “an essential part of me is that I anticipate mistakes in advance and avoid them”. Because I pride myself on my skills at analysing situations and ensuring good outcomes, a bad outcome is a blow to my self-image as the perfect human programmer of myself.

For reasons unclear at this time, Jen and I introduced the technical term turning into a pellet into this conversation. In our terminology, turning into a pellet is what you do when you become upset, depressed and sad because your own brain is beating up your self-image.

This essay started with the question of why I get worked up over all decisions, however inconsequential. The initial answer was that I do not like to make mistakes. The more fleshed-out answer is that I am scared of turning into a pellet.

So, now that I have come to this realisation what can I get from it? Here’s a list (in order of scaritude): First, preventing problems requires anticipating them; anticipation of problems in life is not as easy as anticipation of problems in an algorithm so I need to let myself off the hook if I miss a potential issue that comes along to bite me later. Second (and from a game theoretic perspective) I need to realise that this preplanning engine has a cost to operate; the movie rental example makes clear that sometimes the cost in stress to make the perfect choice is higher than the penalty experienced by making the wrong decision. Third, I have more to offer myself and others than a correct algorithm for living; if I make a mistake it does not mean that I have to attack myself and turn into a pellet.

The second requires the third. The third requires a broadening of self-image, or the logical equivalent of non-linear geometry. Adopting the second and third — however expensive — could have a big payoff. I am working on it.

There is some evidence that I extend my human programming to organizations and humans other than myself. But that is a tangentially related topic for another day. More on that another time.

We are all scared of turning into pellets — of being forced to confront our self-image. Turning into a pellet means different things to each one of us… it depends on how you see yourself. I suspect that it is related to the fact that we see ourselves as ideal inside, and pellet-inducing events have to do with imperfection. What’s your pellet?

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› self     2005-05-23 15:06   ...3