Lets take a sprinkler, for example...now when you turn it on, you see it shooting drops of water in an arc across the yard. There's no way to tell where the next drop is going to fall. But based on the drops that have already hit the ground, you can form an inference about the source of the drops. You can trace the seemingly random drops back to their point of origin.
You can also do this with people - and their history.
Take, for example, a person's personality and social decisions. In the past, they've made particular decisions that ended up leading them down a certain road. The easiest thing to think of, that has a lot of data, would be relationships.
People tend to date a certain type of person. Every once in a while, there will be someone they date that doesn't quite fit the mold of all the people they've previously dated....but generally, they all have something in common.
In order to figure out what's likely to happen next, you have to figure out what's happened before. You have to figure out the common factor in most of the instances before that yielded the same result. How were they treated, how did they communicate, were they attracted to each other, did all the people they dated look alike, etc...
Once that is figured out, you can pretty much determine what's going to happen with the relationship later on down the road. And that sounds a lot like fate.
But wait...
In quantum physics, there is what's known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which says that you can either observe an object in action, or you can measure the object in non-action. But you cannot do both. Basically the act of measurement disturbs the observation that you would have gotten otherwise...and the act of trying to simply observe will not yield a measurement.
Now apply this to humans. As long as someone doesn't know they're being watched, they will continue to go about their business unabated...undisturbed. (e.g. a thief robbing a bank will continue on with his plans if he is unaware of any pre-existing law enforcement activity to stop him). You'd then be able to take in the observation of how they'd act. But once they are aware of the fact that they are being watched, this act of measurement or gathering information has changed how they would have behaved otherwise. (e.g. the thief adapts his plans to account for this new information).
The problem with predicting human behavior, is that as long as the people are unaware, chances are, that it will go on as planned. But once that is compromised, everything changes.
If you find you're next in line for a relationship - you can either look for the pattern that showed how all the past ones failed, and then adapt your intentions to compensate for those mistakes...or you can go on and do nothing about it.
But either way, there is going to be some uncertainty about all of it. Either you'll end up in the observation side of things, where everything just goes about as it would, and be added to the list of failures....or you'll end up on the measurement side of things, where once you've changed your behavior, you've changed the entire system, and can't live it out the way it was meant to be observed.
Maybe the second one is a good thing...
(...might be continued.)
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1 comment:
there is no way to accurately judge real human behavior. after studying body language habits, i know that there is a way to accurately tell what a person is thinking about an individual subject and what a person is going to do about an individual stimuli, but there is no way to accurately know how a person will react to multiple things waiting for a response from them. you can make good estimates about what is to happen next, what direction the person is on a path too, but you cannot accurately determine the personality traits that will decide things like love, hate, or innate reasoning skills.
the reason web habits work so well in judging behavior is that you can infer what someone would click on a web page by seeing the last few pages they have been too. it's simply judging a theme of page views. if we where to throw in more data like what the person is drinking, wearing, or their habitat surroundings, you could become even better at know what they would click on at different web pages. however, there will always be exceptions. just because i'm sitting at my office, drinking my monster energy drink and listening to metallica mp3s, doesn't mean i will not be reading up on the latest bowling ball technology.
when you throw together the innate skill set, the habitat the individuals where raised in, and the simple fact that people change their mind about most stimuli a few hundred times a second; you just cannot accurately quantify the real behavior that will make up their life derisions. when making inferences about human behavior you must remember that no two people will ever think a like every single time. you may think that every guy a girl has dated has been a jerk, but with only a small sample of opinions, who can define a jerks behavior when related to only one person's reactions and history?
there is no way to accurately judge real human behavior. after studying body launguage habbits, i know that there is a way to accurately tell what a person is thinking about an individual subject and what a person is going to do about an individual stimuli, but there is no way to accurately know how a person will react to multiple things waiting for a responce from them. you can make good estimates about what is to happen next, what direction the person is on a path too, but you cannot accurately determine the personality traits that will decide things like love, hate, or innate reasoning skills.
the reason web habbits work so well in judging behavior is that you can infur what someone would click on a web page by seeing the last few pages they have been too. it's simply judging a theme of page views. if we where to throw in more data like what the person is drinking, wearing, or their habbitat surroundings, you could become even better at know what they would click on at diffent web pages. however, there will always be exceptions. just because i'm sitting at my office, drinking my monster engergy drink and listening to metallica mp3s, doesnt mean i will not be reading up on the latest bowling ball technology.
when you throw together the innate skillset, the habitat the individuals where raised in, and the simple fact that people change their mind about most stimuli a few hundred times a second; you just cannot accurately quantify the real behavior that will make up their life desisions. when making inferances about human behavior you must remember that no two people will ever think a like every single time. you may think that every guy a girl has dated has been a jerk, but with only a small sample of opninions, who can define a jerk's behavior when related to only one person's reactions and history?
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