we're all familiar with the troupe of a person chasing a doughnut held aloft and in front of them by a string. since it is technically a part of them, it moves when they do, making it both impossible to ever reach and at the same time holding it aloft at such a close distance that it seems inevitably attainable. this post will address the objective function of the human mind, which works very much like the old doughnut on a string "trick."
as you are already aware, the mind employs the help of a "slot" feature, meaning it [holds] a place for features that bear various relations to their mind's owner so that any particular thing which may find it's way into this placeholder suddenly bears that relation. For example, in the case of the doughnut held aloft on a string, if we put happiness into the slot of our main objective, it will constantly appear in front of us just slightly out of reach, however, since we are holding it in place through the "doughnut" relationship, we will never ever be able to "reach it." We may temporarily put various alternatives into this slot
