I think that's right. It's the default and sensible behavior to encode. Nobody is waiting for the day they wake up and gravity no longer pulls them downward. 

The distinction seems to be that flexibility you mention: when things happen to suggest that all is not as it appears, do you try to figure out why not? Or do you tell yourself a story?

Even that's surprisingly complicated, as Kuhn demonstrated. But doable if you care to. 

elvismercury

mostly_harmless

The Shape of The Game We Play

I would imagine that this is how most people live? Maybe even everyone? *Maybe even LLMs?*

That being said, I think some people are gifted with the ability to be more flexible in their thinkig and thus adapt better to sudden regime changes where the old ways no longer work.

This flexibility could be moral flexibility (willingness to bend the rules or hurt others), or mental flexibility (quickly learning the new rules and how to optimize over it)