{"id":60373,"date":"2016-01-21T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T14:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=60373"},"modified":"2021-06-09T11:29:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T18:29:29","slug":"first-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2016\/01\/21\/first-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis paralysis and making your first move"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of my recently-discovered TV shows is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1839578\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Person of Interest<\/a>&nbsp;starring Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson. It was introduced to me by my housemate, Aaron, so thanks to him I&#8217;ve been binge-watching the last four seasons on Netflix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t want to give too much away, but the basic gist of the show&#8217;s storyline is that a man named Harold has built an extremely advanced artificial intelligence which he simply refers to as &#8220;The Machine&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Finch.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"850\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Finch.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-60411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Finch.jpg 850w, https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Finch-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Finch-768x427.jpg 768w, https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Finch-600x334.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of my favourite scenes from Season 4 was a flashback in episode 11 (&#8220;If-then-else&#8221;) where we see Harold teaching The Machine to play chess. The Machine is taking a very long time to make its opening moves because it is checking all the possible moves and permutations. The Machine is effectively\u00a0stuck in what is commonly known as &#8220;Analysis Paralysis&#8221;, so Harold speaks to the machine&#8230;\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"860\" height=\"484\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ttRuzAaAURA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Harold&#8217;s dialogue in the show is typically very profound, but I found what he says in this scene\u00a0particularly striking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Each possible move [in chess] represents a different game\u2026 By the second move, there are 72,084 possible games. By the third, 9 million. By the fourth there are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the universe. No one could possibly predict them all, even you. <\/p><p>Which means that that first move can be terrifying. It&#8217;s the furthest point from the end of the game, there&#8217;s a virtually infinite sea of possibilities between you and the other side&#8230; <\/p><p>&#8230;But it also means that if you make a mistake, there&#8217;s a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should <strong>simply relax and play<\/strong>.<\/p><cite>Harold Finch, Person of Interest<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My personality type certainly predisposes me towards Analysis Paralysis. Like The Machine, I&#8217;m often afraid of&nbsp;making a mistake, so much so that&nbsp;I spend protracted periods of time considering all the options and possible consequences. Now while prudence is a good thing, this kind of analysis can be&nbsp;debilitating. It&#8217;s a problem when you&#8217;re so risk averse that you never actually take a course of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is here that I find Harold&#8217;s words comforting. In life, much like in a game a chess, it&#8217;s virtually impossible to check every possible scenario and say for absolute certain what will happen, but the sooner you start, the sooner you can make adjustments. So, <em>&#8220;&#8230;simply relax and play&#8221;<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my recently-discovered TV shows is Person of Interest&nbsp;starring Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson. It was introduced to me by my housemate, Aaron, so thanks to him I&#8217;ve been binge-watching the last four seasons on Netflix. I don&#8217;t want to give too much away, but the basic gist of the show&#8217;s storyline is that a man named Harold has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[3530,593,544,2969,3529,3528],"class_list":["post-60373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-analysis-paralysis","tag-chess","tag-choices","tag-featured","tag-harold-finch","tag-person-of-interest"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/FeaturedFinch.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60373"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81698,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60373\/revisions\/81698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}