[ot][spam][crazy] crazy confused ramblings inspired by douglas's blog

[Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many]

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i'm thinking about goal processes, and something i haven't thought
about much internally is how considering something can stimulate
goal-associated feelings (like excitement or worry) without immediate
consciousness of the connection, for me. this wasn't always the case,
but when trauma happens in this situation one can become very
sensitised to triggers; I also have processes in me that attempt to
"snipe" my own behaviors, acting before I do.

emotions here are basically utility. excitement and such is positive
utility, worry and such are negative utility.

this lets one consider the simulation of something -- the exploration
and evaluation of a decision tree -- as part or all of a way to update
its own evaluation function.

we explore what is possible, and see whether we like it or not. if we
do or don't, then we migrate that pleasure or pain up toward the root
of the decision tree.
if we can then identify that a state may be similar to one previously
explored, this gives us a quick heuristic for how much we might be
interested in it.

that heuristic itself, can also have a learned usefulness for
informing general utility.