I was going to say the same thing: medicine does this all the time. The crucial thing to keep in mind though is that it usually has a decent awareness of the di

I was going to say the same thing: medicine does this all the time. The crucial thing to keep in mind though is that it usually has a decent awareness of the difference between when it has a decent working model of underlying causes, or if it is currently stuck at a "least-terrible reverse-engineered behavioral rule of thumb" stage of understanding. The latter can still often be better than doing nothing, and what kind of doctor would choose to not help their patient just because they don't understand why the cure works most of the time? > Anecdote but: you absolutely feel good. At least, I did. I don't know you but glad you're still with us, first of all. Anyway, I think the author was trying to say that the feeling of relief doesn't typically make one seek out the experience of drowning again. Although benign masochism exists of course (which is the technical term for the way people can learn to enjoy negative emotions and experiences). Which probably would be an interesting thing to explore using this cybernetics approach.