The Fable of the Mountain-Climbing Robot and the Trap of the Local Maximum

Imagine that you want to build a robot designed to climb to the highest mountain in the world. Sadly, due to budget constraints, you can only build in very limited senses for this robot. He has an altimeter, to sense his current height, and he has an arm about a yard long, with which he can feel the area immediately surrounding him. How do you program this robot?
The simple answer is as follows:
1. Look all around myself.
2. Figure out what direction slopes up the most from here.
3. Move a few feet in that direction.
4. Repeat.

This method works moderately well, but is subject to one major problem -- it can easily get trapped at a local maximum. Once the robot is at a peak, so that *every* direction slopes down, it will never leave that peak -- even if it's merely a small outcropping near a much taller mountain.

This imagery comes from a Computer Science course I took many years ago, as a problem in search theory. But I have found it to be a useful metaphor for much of life. If you take 'height' as 'happiness' and the 'short robot arm' as 'our limited ability to predict the future', this mountain-climbing robot suddenly stands in for the human condition. We always want to make ourselves happier, but our limited vision often makes it hard for us to do so.

Humans are especially susceptible to the Local Maximum problem. It is common for people to arrive at a state of happiness which cannot be trivially improved. At that point, *any* significant change will make you less happy. But that doesn't mean that there isn't greater happiness *available* -- just that you have to wander through some low-happiness regions to find any that are out there.

So, when you find yourself at a local maximum, you can ask yourself "Am I happy *enough*?" If you are, of course, that's wonderful. But it's sadly common for people to be trapped at a local maximum that's only mediocre -- or actively bad. Such people are often reluctant to initiate changes, because any change will make things, at least in the short term, even *worse*.
Scarier, there's no guarantee that you *will* find a higher balance point any time soon, or even at all. But without such dangerous exploration, you're guaranteed to stay where you are.

This applies to romantic relationships, career choices, living conditions -- all sorts of fields. I've found it a useful lens to look at the world through. I hope you do too.

The Fable of the Mountain-Climbing Robot and the Trap of the Local Maximum

Imagine that you want to build a robot designed to climb to the highest mountain in the world. Sadly, due to budget constraints, you can only build in very limited senses for this robot. He has an altimeter, to sense his current height, and he has an arm about a yard long, with which he can feel the area immediately surrounding him. How do you program this robot?
The simple answer is as follows:
1. Look all around myself.
2. Figure out what direction slopes up the most from here.
3. Move a few feet in that direction.
4. Repeat.

This method works moderately well, but is subject to one major problem -- it can easily get trapped at a local maximum. Once the robot is at a peak, so that *every* direction slopes down, it will never leave that peak -- even if it's merely a small outcropping near a much taller mountain.

This imagery comes from a Computer Science course I took many years ago, as a problem in search theory. But I have found it to be a useful metaphor for much of life. If you take 'height' as 'happiness' and the 'short robot arm' as 'our limited ability to predict the future', this mountain-climbing robot suddenly stands in for the human condition. We always want to make ourselves happier, but our limited vision often makes it hard for us to do so.

Humans are especially susceptible to the Local Maximum problem. It is common for people to arrive at a state of happiness which cannot be trivially improved. At that point, *any* significant change will make you less happy. But that doesn't mean that there isn't greater happiness *available* -- just that you have to wander through some low-happiness regions to find any that are out there.

So, when you find yourself at a local maximum, you can ask yourself "Am I happy *enough*?" If you are, of course, that's wonderful. But it's sadly common for people to be trapped at a local maximum that's only mediocre -- or actively bad. Such people are often reluctant to initiate changes, because any change will make things, at least in the short term, even *worse*.
Scarier, there's no guarantee that you *will* find a higher balance point any time soon, or even at all. But without such dangerous exploration, you're guaranteed to stay where you are.

This applies to romantic relationships, career choices, living conditions -- all sorts of fields. I've found it a useful lens to look at the world through. I hope you do too.