On Expectations

What should one expect out of life?

This is a normative question. If we apply Hume's Guillotine, no amount of empirical facts about the world will allow us to derive an ought from an is. We need to choose our core principles.

Some people choose being "less wrong" as a core principle. In the Platonic realm, there is some algorithm—Solomonoff induction—that considers all possible worlds that fit its observations, and selects the one of minimal Kolmogorov complexity. This is capital T Truth, the theoretical optimum, and through careful refinement of one's own epistemology one can march in its direction.

But this is pathological—the memetic analog to germaphobia. It breeds overthinking, turning, fretting. It's easy to never be wrong if you never put yourself in a position to be wrong. It's easy to talk yourself out of the rest of your life. Behind these principles can hide cowardice and shame.

The cybernetic approach understands that expectations are self-fulfilling prophecies. Your mind is not separate from the world, nor is it a unified entity, but a colony of memes that digest the world like your gut microbiome. The memes that predict, survive. But without anything serious to chew on, they stagnate. Without uncertainty, they calcify.

From a mystical perspective, one should expect nothing. To be perfectly in harmony with one's environment is to surrender to it. There is an upper teleology, an order hidden to us. Gnosis, Brahman, the Tao. All of them point to the same thing. The ineffable. That which cannot be named.

I'll go with the "woo." No expectations. It's been more interesting so far than neurotic cuticle biting, and I want to see where it takes me.