I agree that every choice is a regret, and appreciate your precision in explaining the mechanics of it. Kierkegaard also noticed this and called it the essence of all philosophy (here’s a decent summary that includes the money quote from his original). Regret is similarly viewed as a source of dukkha, or suffering, in Buddhist philosophy; in fact, “dukkha” is sometimes translated as “unsatisfactoriness”, which points at something very much like “regret” being defined in terms of what is not obtained.
As to what to do about it? Well, that’s the big question, or at least an expression of it, and lots of folks are willing to give you answers. For me I’ve addressed it first through science, then rationality, and now something that has no name other than “what Gordon thinks” but which you might call metarationalist Zen, but I suspect we must all find our own way since figuring out how to answer the question is most of the work of understanding the answer if you find it.
I agree that every choice is a regret, and appreciate your precision in explaining the mechanics of it. Kierkegaard also noticed this and called it the essence of all philosophy (here’s a decent summary that includes the money quote from his original). Regret is similarly viewed as a source of dukkha, or suffering, in Buddhist philosophy; in fact, “dukkha” is sometimes translated as “unsatisfactoriness”, which points at something very much like “regret” being defined in terms of what is not obtained.
As to what to do about it? Well, that’s the big question, or at least an expression of it, and lots of folks are willing to give you answers. For me I’ve addressed it first through science, then rationality, and now something that has no name other than “what Gordon thinks” but which you might call metarationalist Zen, but I suspect we must all find our own way since figuring out how to answer the question is most of the work of understanding the answer if you find it.