stoicism

Pasting a quote from Adam Smith by way of HN (source http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS7.html, I should read the whole thing…) that rings somewhat true:

"Human life the Stoics appear to have considered as a game of great skill; in which, however, there was a mixture of chance […] In such games the stake is commonly a trifle, and the whole pleasure of the game arises from playing well, from playing fairly, and playing skilfully. If notwithstanding all his skill, however, the good player should, by the influence of chance, happen to lose, the loss ought to be a matter, rather of merriment, than of serious sorrow. He has made no false stroke; he has done nothing which he ought to be ashamed of; he has enjoyed completely the whole pleasure of the game. […] Our only anxious concern ought to be, not about the stake, but about the proper method of playing. If we placed our happiness in winning the stake, we placed it in what depended upon causes beyond our power, and out of our direction. We necessarily exposed ourselves to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to grievous and mortifying disappointments. If we placed it in playing well, in playing fairly, in playing wisely and skilfully; in the propriety of our own conduct in short; we placed it in what, by proper discipline, education, and attention, might be altogether in our own power, and under our own direction. Our happiness was perfectly secure, and beyond the reach of fortune."

A quick reaction: it seems dangerous to tie happiness to playing the game 'skillfully' because that may also not be something I can control. I may not always be skillful, and a lot of my depression has come from believing that I haven't been skillful. And skillfulness also isn't something you can judge in a vacuum. It's relative; someone with an 1800 ELO rating might think they're the best chess player in their village but lose every time to a grandmaster. The whole notion of skillfulness also assumes a defined goal -- the skillful player is better at checkmating their opponent -- but life has no defined goal (see: the purpose of life), so it's not clear this is coherent.

(Q: under what circumstances can we characterize agents as 'skillful' or not just by observing their actions? the qn would be, are there action sequences that don't maximize any coherent utility fn? obviously there are trivial fns like, 'give you +inf utility if you take exactly this sequence of actions'. but in the standard MDP model, rewards don't depend on action histories, only the current state(/action), so you can start to think about rational agents indep of any particular utility function).

Anyway the thing I like is the idea that happiness "might be altogether in our own power, and under our own direction … perfectly secure, and beyond the reach of fortune."