There is a particular danger in “grokking” quick-response and that is—it’s extremely hard to self-evaluate that you’re doing it wrong, and it takes a lot of time to unlearn a particular. I attest to this as a professional musician and advanced modal interfaces afficionado.
Also, I’m doubting the optimality of “eliminating your slow, conscious deliberation” in any non-synthetic scenario (like most Martial Arts contests and most Martial Arts in general are). There’s a reason Law Enoforcers do not act as Martial Artists, and draw a fine line between deliberating consciously and acting on their motoric training, and run a scenario through a specific rule set.
I’d rather see this article using Law Enforcement instead of Martial Arts as an analogy. It would plant it in the grounds of reality more thoroughly.
Thinking about what to do is an action in itself. If you pause to think whether to brake or steer left to avoid a crash, you’re not doing either. If a SWAT officer pauses to think during the part of a raid when the most important decisions happen, people get shot.
Most optimal algorithms do not involve questioning their own validity. There are times when you design and optimize, and there are times when you execute. Downtime is only useful when you’re not up.
Ran a phone call just now with my uncle who is a SWAT officer (well, localized equivalent of a SWAT officer). He says they’re trained to run in two modes—decision-making and execution—and to switch the two routinely during any particular live-action scenario. He added, quote (paraphrased slightly because of translation), “those that run all the time in execute mode during live-action are morons that get people killed”.
In car-crash scenario, reacting Fast only buys you time to react Properly, but indeed, it’s what is needed. So, i’m here really moving the problem scope to other questions like:
Where is a fine line between Executor and Director?
Should Executor and Director run in paralel or series?
What is the optimal ratio of either in particular situation?
There’s no realistic situation where one should completely overtake the other. No, not even my own heartbeat is allowed to run in Execute mode all the time.
As a side note, the newest Robocop franchise installment kind of ventures to some depth (questionably) in this exact topic, and concludes that it’s best to run on two modes at the same time, Decision-Maker being a slow tweaker of the Executor, detached for the most part. An overseer with only slight control.
I was only talking about the timeframe right after kicking down the door, when you really can’t afford any delays in decision making, but there is only a very limited set of options you need to choose from. It’s the training that gives you the options and the means to choose, you don’t think them up on the spot.
In particular, they don’t just stand there and think about the ethics of yelling at possibly innocent people while they may still be armed.
Similarly, in the car crash, there is no separate Proper and Fast reaction, because if the Fast one is not Proper, you’re dead, end of story. You either make the split-second decision that saves your life or you don’t, and whatever you think about afterwards is the result of already having made the correct choice.
By the time you get into a situation, you should already have a decent working model of your car’s controls and capabilities in your current speed, the road, your surroundings etc. (a.k.a a driver’s licence) so the fast path can reduce the problem into a small set of valid options and their exact execution instantly. What I’m willing to accept as Proper in this context is the act of learning to drive to the point where you don’t have to signal the other drivers that you’re still learning.
It seems pointless to me to ponder on proper ratios, your brain will abandon the illusion of conscious control when it deems necessary. There is no amount of conscious thought that will allow you to ponder on the many-worlds interpretation in freefall. I’m not quite sure what you mean by your heartbeat running in Execute mode, can you control it at will?
There is a particular danger in “grokking” quick-response and that is—it’s extremely hard to self-evaluate that you’re doing it wrong, and it takes a lot of time to unlearn a particular. I attest to this as a professional musician and advanced modal interfaces afficionado.
Also, I’m doubting the optimality of “eliminating your slow, conscious deliberation” in any non-synthetic scenario (like most Martial Arts contests and most Martial Arts in general are). There’s a reason Law Enoforcers do not act as Martial Artists, and draw a fine line between deliberating consciously and acting on their motoric training, and run a scenario through a specific rule set.
I’d rather see this article using Law Enforcement instead of Martial Arts as an analogy. It would plant it in the grounds of reality more thoroughly.
Thinking about what to do is an action in itself. If you pause to think whether to brake or steer left to avoid a crash, you’re not doing either. If a SWAT officer pauses to think during the part of a raid when the most important decisions happen, people get shot.
Most optimal algorithms do not involve questioning their own validity. There are times when you design and optimize, and there are times when you execute. Downtime is only useful when you’re not up.
Ran a phone call just now with my uncle who is a SWAT officer (well, localized equivalent of a SWAT officer). He says they’re trained to run in two modes—decision-making and execution—and to switch the two routinely during any particular live-action scenario. He added, quote (paraphrased slightly because of translation), “those that run all the time in execute mode during live-action are morons that get people killed”.
In car-crash scenario, reacting Fast only buys you time to react Properly, but indeed, it’s what is needed. So, i’m here really moving the problem scope to other questions like:
Where is a fine line between Executor and Director?
Should Executor and Director run in paralel or series?
What is the optimal ratio of either in particular situation?
There’s no realistic situation where one should completely overtake the other. No, not even my own heartbeat is allowed to run in Execute mode all the time.
As a side note, the newest Robocop franchise installment kind of ventures to some depth (questionably) in this exact topic, and concludes that it’s best to run on two modes at the same time, Decision-Maker being a slow tweaker of the Executor, detached for the most part. An overseer with only slight control.
I was only talking about the timeframe right after kicking down the door, when you really can’t afford any delays in decision making, but there is only a very limited set of options you need to choose from. It’s the training that gives you the options and the means to choose, you don’t think them up on the spot.
In particular, they don’t just stand there and think about the ethics of yelling at possibly innocent people while they may still be armed.
Similarly, in the car crash, there is no separate Proper and Fast reaction, because if the Fast one is not Proper, you’re dead, end of story. You either make the split-second decision that saves your life or you don’t, and whatever you think about afterwards is the result of already having made the correct choice.
By the time you get into a situation, you should already have a decent working model of your car’s controls and capabilities in your current speed, the road, your surroundings etc. (a.k.a a driver’s licence) so the fast path can reduce the problem into a small set of valid options and their exact execution instantly. What I’m willing to accept as Proper in this context is the act of learning to drive to the point where you don’t have to signal the other drivers that you’re still learning.
It seems pointless to me to ponder on proper ratios, your brain will abandon the illusion of conscious control when it deems necessary. There is no amount of conscious thought that will allow you to ponder on the many-worlds interpretation in freefall. I’m not quite sure what you mean by your heartbeat running in Execute mode, can you control it at will?