Don’t (always) trust your gut

Credit: Spatial Uncertainty Sampling for End-to-End Control - Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Non-convex-optimization-We-utilize-stochastic-gradient-descent-to-find-a-local-optimum_fig1_325142728 [accessed 26 Feb, 2023]

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about following your gut, in the context of forcing yourself to work or not. One idea that came up in the conversation was this: following your gut only leads to a local optima of satisfaction.

Picture this scenario: A pianist is super passionate about giving concerts and playing piano. But at one of her concerts, somebody boos. Now, the pianist is afraid of giving concerts again, fearing somebody will boo again.

Following in your gut would be to let the fear reign and never give a concert again. This is the equivalent of a local optima because you feel better than if you gave a concert.

It’s plausible in this scenario that there exists a global optimum – by overcoming her fear of boos, she could enjoy doing what she is passionate again. She would be much happier than if she listened to her gut, saying “Don’t give a concert anymore”.

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A lot of the time people don’t know what they are doing