My understanding of Shard Theory is that what you said is true, except sometimes the shards “directly” make bids for outputs (particularly when they are more “reflexive,” e. g. the “lick lollipop” shard is activated when you see a lollipop), but sometimes make bids for control of a local optimization module which then implements the output which scores best according to the various competing shards. You could also imagine shards which do a combination of both behaviors. TurnTrout can correct me if I’m wrong.
My understanding of Shard Theory is that what you said is true, except sometimes the shards “directly” make bids for outputs (particularly when they are more “reflexive,” e. g. the “lick lollipop” shard is activated when you see a lollipop), but sometimes make bids for control of a local optimization module which then implements the output which scores best according to the various competing shards. You could also imagine shards which do a combination of both behaviors. TurnTrout can correct me if I’m wrong.