If anyone is interested in a more formal descriptions of these control-loops, with more testable mechanisms, check out the concept of reward-taxis. Here are two

If anyone is interested in a more formal descriptions of these control-loops, with more testable mechanisms, check out the concept of reward-taxis. Here are two neat papers that I think are more closely related than might initially appear: "Is Human Behavior Just Running and Tumbling?": https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/wzvn9_v1 https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/wzvn9_v1 (This used to be a blog post, but its down, so here's a essentially identical preprint.) A scale-invariant control-loop such as chemotaxis may still be the root algorithm we use, just adjusted for a dopamine gradient mediated by the prefrontal cortex. "Give-up-itis: Neuropathology of extremis": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987718306145 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069... What happens when that dopamine gradient shuts down?