There are two poles of anticipation: Positive anticipation and negative anticipation. Anticipation is expectation; it is a projection of what could happen. And since every projection is a deduction from past memories or history, anticipations are the models of the cognitive system.
Anticipation is a thing that predicts. An excellent example of this could be given by the cartographers; as they discover the terrain, they sketch out a map, believing that the anticipation will help them in the future to navigate the maps. Schemas in CP (Cognitive Psychology) are maps of reality. Maps are a set of anticipations. From a given map, we can anticipate what to expect in the given terrain. Conversely, from a given set of anticipations, we can predict a map.
Maps are time-consuming to draw but are necessary for navigating an environment to not act with reflexes, as reflex actions are generally short-term solutions and may not be the best solution in the long term as it has no faculty to exploit the temporality present in the environment. As a result, a map that is formed is usually updated rather than completely redrawn, even if redrawing is the best choice due to the cost of drawing that map. As a result and drawback of this, the initial map becomes the bias or what I prefer to call prime bias. The prime bias is undestroyable as long as the map is used.
Biases are things that cause the agent to misinterpret the input and draw a conclusion on false premises. There are two ways to minimize the prime bias: one is to update the map given the false evidence, and the other is to neglect the input after all (this is not a good solution).
The best solution is to redraw the map because this allows for greater improvement, even if the older map is finely updated. But as has been mentioned earlier, this is very time and energy-consuming, with the risk of temporarily navigating the terrain without a framework. As a result, maps tend to be biased towards being kept even if they are not producing good results.
Emotions are also maps, but evolutionarily trained maps. Habits are more individual-based maps. Actions are all built on maps and references for developed agents. Assuming different maps are saying the same about the position, what is the degree of correlation between the maps? Highly correlated maps are good at providing stable results and are usually good at exploiting the knowledge with the drawback of being hard to adjust in a given black-swan event. A set of lowly or uncorrelated maps is not that reliable, but it is good at dealing with black swan events.
Emotion-Habit dilemma, or using intuition vs rationality, is a hard one. Perhaps some periods are correlated, and some are uncorrelated, which are taking the strengths of the two types. Relying on a single map is not good because when the terrain changes, the map becomes misleading.
Lastly, I would like to show a correlation between two types of thinking using some examples.
The map that leads to you
Ain't nothing I can do
The map that leads to you
Following, following, following to you
The map that leads to you
Ain't nothing I can do
The map that leads to you
Following, following, following
I hear your voice in my sleep at night
Hard to resist temptation
'Cause something strange has come over me
Now, I can't get over you
No, I just can't get over you
This is a part of lyrics from the Marron 5 on this track named Maps. In my opinion, this track is showing someone who has a conflicting map between habits & emotions. Although they try to reach their romance, they seem to be not achieving good results due to their wrong habit space, which dictates the action space. It's time for them to redraw the map, as it seems their efforts to update the map are not producing any returns.
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be, be
And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shinin' until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it bee
This is a part of lyrics from The Beatles on their song Let it be. Times of trouble are the times when the map is misaligned with reality, and the subject suffers from this dissonance. The subject then accepts the reality as it is and, with the whispers of wisdom, redraws a new map based on this. And then the light shines on them. If one fails to reach one's goals, most of the time, the solution is not trying "harder," "better," "faster," or "stronger" but just redrawing the map.
Those two examples ultimately show that life is such a thing that it requires constant remapping, always extending. I believe that it is the essence of growth that the humanistic school of psychodynamics uses to name the complete and healthy individual. A real self is free from any tyrannies that prevent them from re-drawing their maps. Resilience with cognitive flexibility leads to becoming better and better at drawing maps and maps to deal with the changing world orders in the subject's environment.
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