A model of storytelling.

1. Zemblanity and Serendipity in
Narrative Rationality
Venkatesh Rao
vgr@ribbonfarm.com
Refactor Camp, March 7, 2015

2. No tension Start tension Rising tension
Peak tension Falling tension
Tension resolved
?

3. ?
What made the protagonist NOTICE the bomb?
Take a moment to imagine a fill-in-the-blank event

4. Basic question
Can narratives uncover new truths?
OR
Are they instrumental mnemonic structures at best? (Taleb)
Narrative Rationality (model developed in Tempo)
OR
Calculative Rationality (Behavioral Economics)

5. Narrative tension: audience torn between two or more possible
emotional states corresponding to two or more possible
outcomes
(S)he lives, we’re happy
(S)he dies, we’re sad
Hero(ine)

6. Increasing number
of possible
outcomes
Decreasing
number of
possible outcomes

7. Notices with p1 <p <p2
chance of escaping
Delay
T
Boom
…but has no chance
anyway, no time to act
Notices surprisingly
early, with p>p2 chance
of escaping
… plenty of options, time to
behave optimally
…Notices too late, with
p<p1 chance of escaping
Act of
nature
E1: Bomb
Planted E2: ?
Random Universe
(no meaningful agency)
Causal Universe
(no meaningful agency)
Real life
(fair fighting chance)
Serendipity
(surprisingly lucky)
Zemblanity
(unsurprisingly unlucky)

8. NATURE of assumed universe in a narrative is implied by …
1. Delays between successive salient events
2. Causal link between successive salient events
Delay T
E1: Bomb planted E2: ?
?
Behavioral economics concerns live here: Confirmation
bias, survivorship bias, attribution error, analogical
thinking, overfit patterns, just-so stories, rationalization
E3: Bomb discovered

9. Delay T
E1 E2
This is causation, no problem.
What about this?
Is 𝑷(𝑬𝟐|𝑬𝟏) within the realm of “normal”?
E2
?
E3
?

10. Surprise
(play)
Unsurprise
(taxes)
Pleasant
(life)
Unpleasant
(death)
Serendipity
Zemblanity Bahramdipity*
Bahramdipity
Extraordinary sense
of certain doom,
beyond data
Extraordinary sense
of certain luck,
beyond data
* Bahramdipity: when a force suppresses serendipity
Thanks Morgan Sutherland for suggesting this 2x2
Winning side
(Eg. Crony capitalism)
Losing side
(startup killed
by crony
regulators)
Feel of a post
product-market-fit
startup
On the way to deadpool

11. Certainty Surpluses
Subjective belief stronger than justified by known facts,
analysis and probabilities.
• Serendipity is a positive certainty surplus (“I am charmed”)
• Zemblanity is a negative certainty surplus (“I am doomed”)

12. Null Hypothesis
There is no such thing as serendipity or zemblanity
Certainty surpluses are entirely in our heads

13. Eight Non-Mutually-Exclusive Accounts of Certainty Surpluses
1. False confidence: You’re an idiot (Dunning-Kruger effect)
2. Black Swan: Your expectations are too narrowly calibrated
3. Hidden Agency: Somebody really is conspiring for/against you
4. Metis: Your behavior embodies existing tacit knowledge
5. Causal illiteracy: You’re rediscovering known phenomena
6. Comfort seeking: We like to feel certain of our beliefs
7. Self-fulfilling prophecy: Belief creates serendipity/zemblanity
8. Computation: You are discovering and using new things in real
time through storytelling before understanding them
“More than trial-and-error” hypothesis.
Let’s explore this possibility

14. Certainty Surplus: Subjective belief stronger than justified by
known facts, analysis and probabilities.
Competence Surplus: Luck-wrangling capabilities greater than
accounted for by conscious and unconscious skills

15. Defensible data
Leap-of-faith pseudo-data
Occam’s Razor
Inspired abductive* reasoning
OR
“Overfit”
Ugly fact ignored in favor of
beautiful theory
* Neither deductive, nor inductive; what Sherlock Holmes does

16. Hypothesis: Serendipity depends on using open-world
opportunity to create salience

19. http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/highly-distractible-people-have-more-creative-success

20. COMEDY
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Black Knight Sketch
TRAGEDY/DRAMA
Cool Hand Luke
Fight Scene
Zemblanity: Hopelessness of a Closed World
Two examples: what’s the difference?

21. Classical Tragedy and Comedy are both Zemblanity
• Difference #1: tragic hero is more skilled* than
non-hero
• Difference #2: tragic hero knows he is doomed,
comedic non-hero does not
(see: Steve Kaplan, The Hidden Tools of Comedy)

22. "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give
orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem,
pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,
die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.“ -- Heinlein
*Competent Man trope

23. Noble character plus
fatal flaw (hamartia)
Tryst with
destiny
arrives
False hope
False hope
dashed
Face to face
with death
RIP,
zemblanity
validated
Tragedy
Hopeless,
dignified
struggle

24. Happy go lucky fool
thinks he’s blessed
Unexpected
luck
False hope
Realization
of other side
of bargain
Undignified
struggle to
prevail
Realizes it’s over, rationalizes
back to cheer
Back to old life or
worse,
zemblanity
validated
Comedy

25. Key Classical Distinction: Dignity of Struggle, not Outcome
Roll the dice after skill exhausted: Cut the green
wire: Dignified skilled gamble that goes wrong
Do something wild, like throwing bomb in ketchup:
Undignified, unskilled, not-even-wrong action
Roll the dice after skill exhausted; cut the blue
wire: Dignified skilled gamble that goes right
Meditatively accept death: Dignified non-action
Scream: Undignified non-action
Figure out that the blue wire must be cut: Dignified
skilled, correct action

26. But what if it works?
Do something wild, like throwing bomb in ketchup:
Undignified, unskilled, not-even-wrong action
“Wild, not-even-wrong” is not “Random”

27. Right Wrong Not even wrong
Right Wrong Not even wrong
A tessellation metaphor: traveling from red to green

28. Sidebar for Deleuze and Guattari fans (can safely ignore):
• Right and wrong actions are striated with respect to a
mental model
• Not-even-wrong actions are smooth with respect to a
mental model
Sidebar for John Boyd fans (can safely ignore):
• Right and wrong actions operate within an orientation
• Not-even-wrong actions reorient to get inside the
decision cycle of an orientation

29. Portals: where not-even-wrong
actions in one world are
deterministically meaningful in
another
Serendipity/Zemblanity zones:
where not-even-wrong actions in
one world are unpredictably
meaningful in another
What if two tessellations are partially co-extensive?

30. The Freytag Triangle is an approximation of this…
Middle Earth Rules
Sauron-Ascendant Rules
Age-of-Man Rules
Shared notion of “Sacred”
Profane/Opposed notion of “Sacred”

31. WHY are classical narratives zemblanitous?

32. • change-is-profane mental models and…
• … a restoration-of-sacredness imperative
Sacred Sacred
Increasing Profanity Restoration
Peak Transient Profanity

33. 1. Classical narratives are GUARDIAN (Jane Jacobs) narratives
2. They are about restoring a sacred social order
3. About cherished values prevailing, not new discoveries
Expanding possibilities MUST be followed
by shrinking possibilities
Shrinking possibilities
feel ZEMBLANITOUS

34. What makes non-classical narratives exceptional?

35. Serendipity requires continuously
expanding universe of possibilities
You can get luckier than you think
through dynamics you have
encountered but not grokked yet

36. Side view: the Freytag staircase
(see Tempo)
1. “To infinity and beyond!” feel
2. Endless adventures, no return
3. Like science/technology/innovation
4. COMMERCE narratives (Jane Jacobs)

37. In the tessellation metaphor…
Increasing complexity, variety,
aperiodicity, randomness of tessellation
Progressively less “escaped”
realities*
*See: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/01/16/on-the-design-of-escaped-realities/
Technical bunnytrail: 2013 PhD thesis, “Computational
Complexity and Decidability of Tileability”, Jed Yang, UCLA.
http://www.math.ucla.edu/~pak/papers/Yang-thesis.pdf

38. Are there such narratives?

39. https://vimeo.com/2113477
Yes!

40. Adult
“Restoration of
Sacredness” Skills
Classical
storytelling

41. What might non-classical storytelling skills look like?
• Necessarily more comic than tragic
• “Unreasonable effectiveness of wild actions”
• Hitchhiker’s Guide

42. Comic Book Exercise
1. We will use a template based on bomb example
2. Self-identify as artist or scriptwriter and pair up
3. Decide broad story parameters
a) Serendipity or Zemblanity for hero/heroine (or villain)?
b) Are characters Guardian or Trader?
c) Comic or Tragic? (right/wrong/not-even-wrong action?)
4. Brainstorm an inspired, abductive overfit to filled-in frames
5. Storyboard till you get a story you like
6. Draw, letter and ink the final version like a stick-figure pro
7. Turn in to a facilitator for inclusion in Refactor Camp 2015
comicbook