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Thread: Uncertainty & Desire
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11-15-2010, 09:16 PM #26
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11-16-2010, 04:29 PM #27
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11-16-2010, 10:43 PM #28
Really dig your blog, Cookie Monster. Thanks for the link.
"The skis just popped me up out of the snow and I went screaming down the hill on a high better than any heroin junkie." She Ra
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11-17-2010, 01:36 PM #29
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11-19-2010, 08:11 PM #30
I adapt to uncertainty in an exponential manner. If I'm twice as uncertain, I'm four times as conservative. Obviously, this is theoretical, but you get the point.
As for desire, it can be rough when buddies come up to AK expecting the ultimate, and I can't fulfill their wants because it's not the right time. That being said, when it's go time, there is nothing more fun than stepping it up.
P.S. Your blog is spectacular.
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11-20-2010, 05:01 PM #31
Thanks to everyone for the great and informed responses. I'm trying to stay out of the conversation as much as possible because there aren't really any right or wrong answers. I'd like to pose another question:
Do you feel that uncertainty and desire put you at risk for making errors? Can you connect uncertainty and desire, either separately or in conjunction, to errors you've made in the past?
This is interesting. I've never thought about A. ) quantifying conservatism, or B. ) what sort of formula might exist. But I like this "twice as uncertain, four times as conservative" concept very much. It's very clear and easy to understand.
Thanks for the kind words. This is the nicest compliment I've received. The emails and anonymous comments I get aren't always nice!
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11-21-2010, 03:10 AM #32Registered User
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for me, it's a constant battle to make sound choices. as i get older the risks seem to be more apparent, even when the desire is high. realistically there are still too many variables that affect my desire and my ability to make my perception match the reality. i try to err on the cautious side and hope i make the right decision when it counts.
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11-28-2010, 11:50 PM #33Missing Link
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If you have a "desire" to live, you reduce "uncertainty" by making informed decisions. If you are unable to make an informed decision about stability, which can be difficult, select terrain that is non-consequential. End of dilemma.
Backcountry skiing does not always have to be status statement thats judged by slope angle.
ML
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11-29-2010, 05:54 PM #34
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11-30-2010, 12:19 AM #35Missing Link
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How do you reduce uncertainty without gathering information?
If I think I'm driving down the wrong side of the road, but I'm uncertain, I look for information that will reduce my uncertainty. As I see the headlamps coming straight at me I take that information and error correct.
I have now made an informed decision and have completely reduced my uncertainty.
ML
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11-30-2010, 01:07 AM #36
You cannot reduce uncertainty by making informed decisions. You must consider uncertainty in order to characterise any decision as "informed".
This is a pretty black and white example, and it's the information reduces your uncertainty, not the decision. The decision is simply the reaction. Your example does describe the decision process accurately, in that it's ongoing, integrative, and continuously adaptive.
Anyway, the example you provide is akin to observing Class I data such as cracking or whumpfing or avalanches. In these cases, it is very easy to say that the snow is absolutely unstable.
Unfortunately, because the winter snowpack is conditionally unstable throughout most of the winter, it becomes very difficult to reduce uncertainty to zero at most times and places.
I'm curious about the degree to which people formally consider desire and uncertainty in the backcountry. Specifically how it makes them feel, and how they react to it.
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12-01-2010, 10:52 PM #37Missing Link
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CM, good discussion. So many places to go with it!
CM
and it's the information reduces your uncertainty, not the decision
So far as "formally" considering desire and uncertainty. I'm not familiar with any formal recording standards tied to either of those elements. What modern brain researchers will tell you, such as Johna Lehrer, author of "How We Decide" whose research in part is based on FMRI scans conducted on humans, is that emotions and logic are present yet play unequal roles in the decision making process; too much logic and you're lost in the inability to move forward, too much emotion and we all know what types of decisions that will lead to.
So that leaves us with considering that when traveling in the BC with friends in search of awesome turns, that we need to "think about how we think" - that emotion/desire and uncertainty go hand and hand in the decision making process and that we'd better consider how they conspire well prior to reaching any decision points in hazardous terrain.
In closing I would say that formally I consider uncertainty and desire by having options in hand prior to going out - a preferred and alternative option in hand and discussed with my touring partners prior to travel in hazardous environments. There is no question about how the desire of awesome powder or a long sought after objective will make me feel - how I react to it is the crux and that reaction needs to be injected with some degree of logic that revolves around the process of an informed decision.
ML
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12-02-2010, 05:44 AM #38
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12-03-2010, 12:22 PM #39
Cookie Monster I think ML is getting close to your thoughts about trip planning helping to resolve uncertainty.
Great conversation.
Now, harnessing desire... is that a function of age, maturity, having children (I have heard that one many times from students), or what?
Looking at my reading, Deep Survival for example, taking an extra minute to think, let a decision go through the logic phase rather than the reactive phase of emotion, will help us avoid Desire taking over.
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12-03-2010, 03:23 PM #40
This great conversation has been buyoed significantly by your contributions!
You raise a really good point about taking that extra minute to allow things to settle. As a male, I battle with "reactive tendencies" fairly often ( in many areas of life ), but I try to use the well-being of my family as a reality check. As in "they don't deserve to suffer just because you need to let off some steam".
But things definitely weren't always this way... in fact it's embarrassing for me to even think about how stupid and foolishly self-centred I've been in the past.
So, as you have outlined above, in "hot situations", what do people use for a reality check that helps them insist upon that quiet minute?
I never want my family to sit at a frozen trailhead somewhere and wait for "news". That's my reality check.
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12-03-2010, 10:47 PM #41Missing Link
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CM - that reality check is likely to quell any frivolous desire!! ML
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12-03-2010, 11:14 PM #42
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12-04-2010, 12:35 AM #43
Yeah Lynne, I've been taught a similar way to reframe a potential action, though in a guiding context. It's slightly less morbid and hinges on "...your Honor" statements. As in "Yes, your Honor, I understood that was a hazard but...." Naturally the idea is that if the statement sounds eyebrow-raising in that phrasing, it probably is.
In the organization I work for it's something of a running quip. That's allowed it to be an accepted way to question a peer's judgment while side-stepping the tension that sort of conversation often carries.
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12-04-2010, 04:59 PM #44
Interesting...juxtaposing uncertainty with desire, but I'm not sure that either can be fully divested from the other. If 'uncertainty' COULD be fully excised out of whatever endeavor, be it attempting that never before climbed face, or trying that cool but crazy steep chute you've been drooling over for three years but haven't yet attempted, would that not diminish the 'desire' of that endeavor to some extent...making it somehow less fulfilling when completed?
What brings me to the mountains is the same thing that brings me to sail offshore oceans...it is the fathoming of the depths of one's soul and the quickening of pulse one gets when attempting some adventure that is just a little bit unsure. It is just off the footpath of normalcy and fully in the territory of desire that one's heart beats the strongest and perhaps the truest.
Them's just my two thoughts on it, anyway.
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12-04-2010, 08:18 PM #45
Thanks for the great contributions; this thread is good and interesting.
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12-04-2010, 08:41 PM #46
I'm 42 with a young son and the only things I desire without qualification are blowjobs and tax breaks.
If a questionable slope doesn't offer a greater chance of either of those two things, I find safer terrain.Last edited by JoeStrummer; 12-04-2010 at 08:54 PM.
"Buy the Fucking Plane Tickets!"
-- Jack Tackle
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12-05-2010, 09:27 PM #47
This is a phenomenal thread....subscribed
Originally Posted by DoWork
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12-05-2010, 11:50 PM #48The furthur we go, the stranger it gets...
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12-08-2010, 05:56 PM #49
The ISSW thread discussion is interesting.
More on the Avaluator, it has two applications within the package. One is the "Slope Evaluation Card" that Socialist mentioned. It is a plastic card slightly bigger than a credit card.
The other application is a "Trip Planner" inside the booklet. You can use it online here http://www.avalanche.ca/avaluator/
Input the parameters and the Trip Planner offers a recommendation.
There is a new V.2 Avaluator out this year and internally is seems the CAC are very committed to it.Life is not lift served.
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12-08-2010, 06:18 PM #50
My desire to ski steep exposed shit is very strong. How I'm trying to re-frame that desire is by re-reading events I've seen or re-live incidents in which I've been exposed. The sheer horror I feel and visceral nauseau I experience after doing so beats back the ski-steep-shit desire in me.
If you haven't had the pleasure of personal involvement in near-death situations read something unpleasant like Accidents in North American Mountaineering, first person accounts of burials and death, accounts of survivors guilt. There's plenty of that around and it might help one press the reset button on the testosterone meter
EDIT - I just realized that I didn't answer CM's question at all
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