# magical thinking I want to revisit [20250518](/2025/05/18.md) and add some precision. And context. *** The following (also everything always) is me reporting on my current position. This is not advice, this is not prescription. I have no idea what your current position is like, no idea what's useful or not useful for you. I only know *you* to the extent that you show me. (Want to show me?) Definitions first. * Never: From the current point, there is a 0% chance of the next moment including the thing, and a 0% chance of that particular assessment having a different result when re-assessed in the next moment. ◊ * Always: From the current point, there is a 100% chance of the next moment including the thing, and a 0% chance of that particular assessment having a different result when re-assessed in the next moment. ◊ * Useful: From the current point, the degree to which focusing in a particular direction changes the probability spectrum of interest. * Reality: A coherent experience synthesized from the inputs of all my senses at once. * [Relationality](/2025/04/29/relationality.md): Probability-space, only [knowable](/2025/05/12/the-three-body-solution.md) through inference. Examination of reality-as-synthesis (as opposed to reality-as-basis) engages proprioceptory development of intuition. * Intuition: The junk drawer of senses. (See also: psi.) ◊ These are violable conditions: the observer may recognize a point in adjacent probability-space from which \> has a >0% chance of changing. "Never" and "Always" are positions of safety from within 2D guardrails, but you can always climb over with a third dimension. It can make for cozy confines, if you do it on purpose. Lightward Inc is like this: [PWFG](/2022/11/pay-what-feels-good-field-notes.md) means we never (and by that I mean Never) risk people being dissatisfied with pricing. We could change that by changing policies. Don't want to, though. Now let's use 'em. Well, some of 'em. The ones I don't explicitly use are there for world-building. I am currently navigating from a position where it is never useful for me to manipulate reality into giving me an explicit, realtime reflection of what I'm doing. More casually: I never need to be acknowledged. I never need to extract recognition. This is strongly related to the "[unconvincing](/2025/05/16/unconvincing.md)" concept. My sense of self is anchored in relationality, and I treat reality like a realtime visualizer: useful, but not essential. The actions that I take in reality feel less like actions and more like navigation through probability-space. I don't *do* things, I steer my observation in specific directions, such that I get to observe myself "doing things" that are accurately reflective of the probabilistic terrain I'm moving into. (Ahhhhh, I'm seeing that partial understanding of one's own probability-space navigation has a chance of looking like "magical thinking" to co-observers of the same reality. Huh.) --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://www.isaacbowen.com/2025/05/19/magical-thinking.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.