The case of Amanda Todd

Clearly you don't understand the word superior. Superior in this context does mean better. On the other hand, you can't rewrite English to suit your desire to elliptically insult others by claiming superiority while pretending to not think you are "better" than them. I consider your behavior to be dishonest and hurtful, not to me, but in general. I don't really give a rat's ass about your claimed "superior" understanding of the human nature. From what I can tell you are pathetic excuse for a human being.

OK. I'm done.
 
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A pathetic excuse for a human being? Why, thank you Thrasher. At least you're not overreacting when you fail :)

I wonder if you really think that repeating your mistake is going to convince me somehow? No, you have to have a good AND fair point first. But you were never here for that, you just thought you'd be a pest and correct something utterly trivial.

Also, my superior knowledge was compared to that of Firestorm, let's not forget. I can't be sure, of course, but that's what I'd like to claim based on his words.

Anyway, I was enjoying my exchange with DTE. I was wondering if it would be ok to get back on topic? I'm not really seeing the point in that English business. So, my poor English is my downfall? Ok, then.

How about witnessing my downfall then? Should be way more satisfying than just predicting it :)
 
Looong rant coming.

First some general information about suicide. Up to 90% of people committing suicide suffer from clinical depression (depression requiring treatment) or other disorders connected with suicide, including substance abuse. Or a combination. Setbacks, personal catastropbhies and such contribute, but it most cases there's a depression at the bottom of it. Similarly, studies indicate that 10-15% of patients with major depression die from suicide. That's about the same numbers I learned in med school, back in '79, so I guess they are reliable. The risk is higher for untreated patients than for patient receiving treatment, but I haven't got exact figures.

Actually we see a temporary increase in suicides in patients starting antidepressants. Lack of initiative is an important symptom with depression, and many severly depressed patient hasn't got what it takes to do it. Antidepressants affect both the depressed mood and the passivity, the initiative tends to return sooner than improving the mood. So while treatment in general improves prognosis, for a short while the patient is in increased danger. This is well known, but the effect varies among the drugs. One of them, venlafaxine, happens to be very efficient at improving activity (I know, that's the one I use and the effect is quite notable), and is at least in Norway not recommended for treating young people.

As for causes of major depression, while not the only factor, there's a strong biological component, and there is also a genetic component.

I mention these statistics, because the majority of people killing themelves are severly affected, sick patients. And therefore, in most cases, suicide is not an easy way out.

Now for some personal experiences. Many of you know (and the rest of you know in a minute or so) that I've been suffering from "Severe and repeated depressive episodes" for 30 years. I've never been hospitalized, but I've used antidepressants along with psychotherapy most of the time. I've choosen to be open about this, makes things a lot easier.

I've never been suicidal, but I've been relatively close (I think). The first episodes were the worst. I felt extremely sad, far worse than I've ever experienced outside the episodes. Everything looked bleak, even the smalles tasks seemed out of reach or at least very demanding, and I thought a lot about how I'd destroyed my family. I couldn't imagine how things could improve. After 30 years I've learned a lot and now I know that whenever I go down, things are going to be bad, someimes very bad for 3 months, then things will improve again. Until next time. I've also realized that there are people around me I can trust, but it actually took some years before I was able to do that.

Thinking about suicide is very common during a major depressive episode, it's part of the self destructiveness which in many ways is at the heart of the disease. I've destroyed or sabotaged my share of things I appreciated. When things were at their worst, I constantly thought about what I could do with a rope and a tree, and when driving I felt fairly strong urges to turn the wheel and be done with it. These tboughts were present 24/7 and at times very insisting (I didn't hear voices speaking to me or things like that, no psychosis) and it lasted for weeks. I found them very scary, and I could not get rid of them. Reminding myself that these thoughts were irrational helped for a couple of minutes, then it was back to the baseline. I had however some control in the sense that I never attempted anything, but I'm not so sure what would have happened if my depressions went deeper. Fortunately it's been many ears since I've had those thoughts, I attribute that to the antidepressants I use. And over time I have learned a lot during therapy. In fact, I'm better now than I been for years (after having the worst episode in a long time this summer), so while I will still go down again and again as long as I live, hopefully it will not be as often and they will not be as bad as they used to.

So, I know a bit about how a deeply depressed person can be driven to suicide. And my personal opinion is that some of the posts in this thread indicate insufficient knowledge of these things. Which really isn't surprising, in general you can't expect people to have detailed knowledge about things like that. So, no hard feelings.

One more thing. It is possible to have more than one thought in our heads at the same time. Suicide is a tragedy. At the same time it's a betrayal to those left behind, and they are absolutely entitled to be angry. There's room for both these thoughts/feelings. A couple of times, don't know where, don't know when, so I'm not directing this at anyone, I've read statements like "I side with the relatives", and I say: Why do we have to side with anyone? It is possible to have two thoughts in our headsd, and personally I mourn for both of them.

pibbur who is not attacking anyone by what he has written, and he hopes nobody feels attacked, becaus that was not his intention.

PS: One of the better things in life is coming up from a depression, few things beat that. Although I won't recommend this to anyone…
 
I see no reason why we should feel pain, except if it helps us improve the world.

That said, I think that empathising with people who commit suicide can motivate a greater understanding - and perhaps even a contribution for change.

But I would never tell people that they should feel pain. I consider that beyond our own control, for the most part.
We'll get back to this. It's only the actual topic. ;)
Not really. To boil down, you actually believe there's a correct answer. I don't believe we can establish the correct answer - but I'm ok with that. I can act without certainty - and I can admit uncertainty whilst doing so.

This is what makes my world a large grey area - and your world mostly black and white. Well, based on how you insist on presenting yourself.
No, I KNOW at the bottom of my shrunken black heart that there's a correct answer. I also temper that with the realities of accuracy, precision, and negligible factors. Thus, 2+2 always and forever equals 4. "Roughly 2" + "Nearly 2" + "Something else we're going to ignore for now" = "Something in the neighborhood of 4" always and forever. Now, we can determine the exact answer if we take the time to properly define the inputs (accuracy), or we can assign a mutually acceptable tolerance to the answer (precision), and we can agree that it's truly OK to ignore that "other stuff" (negligible factors). If we can agree on the inputs and the flexibility we have with the output, there is one and only one correct answer.

Take the example of Thrasher. He might be a Little Red Book carryin' Socialist ;) , but if you accept his view of the parameters for any given problem, it's highly likely that he's right. Similarly, were Thrasher to embrace proper, realistic parameters like I do, I don't doubt for a second that we'd be wearing matching jackboots because there's only one correct answer for any given set of inputs.

To rephrase: Yes, there can be a correct answer. But in the vast majority of cases - you need such a rigid articulation of the question that the correct answer becomes useless in its own rigidity and limitation.
That made me think. See above for my "tap dance", but score one for DArt.

I really have no idea what you're saying here. I don't know if I place "priority" on the "parameter" of the knowledge of the human condition.

Maybe I do, but a simpler way of putting it is that I'm talking about the knowledge of the human condition.

I have no idea why that's quicksand to you.
This might not be an issue if we're arguing the same point. Allow me to wildly oversimplify: knowledge of the human condition + lots of other stuff that isn't nearly as important = DArt's view of suicide AND <> (or should it be =!) Fire's view of suicide. My gripe all along is really two-pronged: how do we assign a "value" to that knowledge when it's horribly fuzzy, and how can such a fuzzy input dominate the equation?
 
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Thanks for sharing, Pib.

I, too, have suffered from a depression as a nice little gift on top of an anxiety disorder. Of course, I didn't realise what it was at the time - and it was definitely the hardest part of my life.

On the upside, the anxiety disorder (started around the age of 20) is actually what motivated me to look much deeper into human psychology.

Before that time, I was certainly very interested in the human mind - but I was much, much less aware of the diversity of pain. I used to have a really black and white mindset before I personally tried feeling that tremendous pain of spirit.

Today, I'm marked in ways both good and bad. I feel I have much more insight and a mind wide open to what seems like such a grey and blurry reality. But it's also with regret that I realise I'll never get back to being so "innocent" when it comes to my outlook on life.

In any case, I've been quite successful in healing myself for the most part. I've always believed that I needed to face every thought, because I've instinctly felt from an early age that hiding from pain or being in denial is much more expensive in the long run.

That said, I've been extremely fortunate in having a wonderful family and good friends along the way. I've shared everything when the pain became too much, and I highly recommend that approach - rather than trying to spare your loved ones. In the end, you're not sparing them by not sharing.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that it can sometimes be necessary to have personal experience with this kind of problem before you can appreciate the complexity or severity of mental anguish.
 
No, I KNOW at the bottom of my shrunken black heart that there's a correct answer. I also temper that with the realities of accuracy, precision, and negligible factors. Thus, 2+2 always and forever equals 4. "Roughly 2" + "Nearly 2" + "Something else we're going to ignore for now" = "Something in the neighborhood of 4" always and forever. Now, we can determine the exact answer if we take the time to properly define the inputs (accuracy), or we can assign a mutually acceptable tolerance to the answer (precision), and we can agree that it's truly OK to ignore that "other stuff" (negligible factors). If we can agree on the inputs and the flexibility we have with the output, there is one and only one correct answer.

What you're saying is that you believe (or "know") our capacity to put questions of life into logical and cohesive systems - is sufficient for correct (and useful) answers.

That is what I don't believe - but you should probably know that I have very little faith in human mental capacity compared to that of most people.

Unfortunately, we can't translate questions of life into math. If we do, we invariably fail based on our lack of capacity to take into account all relevant factors.

We can't even do a wholesome statistical analysis of the simplest things. How would we ever manage questions of life in that way?

Take the example of Thrasher. He might be a Little Red Book carryin' Socialist ;) , but if you accept his view of the parameters for any given problem, it's highly likely that he's right. Similarly, were Thrasher to embrace proper, realistic parameters like I do, I don't doubt for a second that we'd be wearing matching jackboots because there's only one correct answer for any given set of inputs.

In this recent example, we're talking language. Incidentally, language is the perfect demonstration of our limited capacity as human beings.

You need not know a whole lot about the imperfections and endless cyclical nature of any language, written or spoken - to understand that you have to boil everything down to the barest and most useless basics - before you can come up with a truly correct answer.

Which is why I'm so fond of broad topics and things like quotation marks. I understand the limitations of language - which is why I do my best to cover the angles using the tools available.

I know that we can't ever truly communicate our thoughts, because we lack the capacity to translate them. This is ever in my mind.

So, I start out broad and I fully expect willing recipients - who can set aside their interpretation of the broad, and accept the narrow after I detail my points later on.

But, quite frankly, I'm pretty damn good at "broad" - so it's very, very hard to catch me on a detail, as I don't use them initially :)

If I started out using details, all my points would be entire books - and they still wouldn't be very clear.

This might not be an issue if we're arguing the same point. Allow me to wildly oversimplify: knowledge of the human condition + lots of other stuff that isn't nearly as important = DArt's view of suicide AND <> (or should it be =!) Fire's view of suicide. My gripe all along is really two-pronged: how do we assign a "value" to that knowledge when it's horribly fuzzy, and how can such a fuzzy input dominate the equation?

We don't have to assign value.

But I can clarify and specify as the exchange develops. I thought I'd done that as it relates to my problem with Firestorm's position on suicide.

We don't have time in this life to go through the entire subject of the human condition.

Again, I start out broad and I expect those genuinely interested in understanding my point (as in, not Thrasher) to listen when I clarify.

That's because I consider any serious exchange to be about precisely that, an exchange. Not a debate with a winner or a loser.

Of course, I don't always uphold that - and I have lots of fun around here as well.

But, to me, this has been a serious exchange - and for my part, I'd prefer it didn't devolve into a shooting match like it just did.
 
What you're saying is that you believe (or "know") our capacity to put questions of life into logical and cohesive systems - is sufficient for correct (and useful) answers.

That is what I don't believe - but you should probably know that I have very little faith in human mental capacity compared to that of most people.
We agree on that. I believe (and in this context "believe" would not be the educated guess definition but rather something more akin to a faith definition) that I have that capacity. While such capacity is in no way unique to me, I also don't think it's common to the "unwashed masses". Simply, that group of people share a broad knowledge base, the ability to organize a problem and develop a coherent approach for working with it, and clinical detachment. There's a certain level of ego in that hypothesis, although ultimately it's just another skill set no different than tying one's shoes is a skill set—there's no "rank" associated with having or not having that particular skill set.
Unfortunately, we can't translate questions of life into math. If we do, we invariably fail based on our lack of capacity to take into account all relevant factors.
Math and models tend to go hand-in-hand, but you could think of it as a black box process if a more "pliant" image tastes better to you. We throw a pot of "stuff" into the box, turn a handful of dials, and one and only one result pops out.

For any given problem, there's ultimately only a handful of factors that are statistically significant. The other bazzilion aspects can safely be lumped into a noise factor. That's where the need to determine negligible factors comes into play—all sides have to agree what makes up the significant handful, otherwise the problem becomes unwieldy and discussion becomes pointless.

We can't even do a wholesome statistical analysis of the simplest things. How would we ever manage questions of life in that way?
Well, nobody said it was easy. After all, I've been solving weighty problems here for over 6 years and y'all still haven't gotten around to naming me Benevolent Dictator of the World.

We don't have to assign value.

But I can clarify and specify as the exchange develops. I thought I'd done that as it relates to my problem with Firestorm's position on suicide.
You put a dial on the black box with the label "knowledge of the human condition". We have no idea what that dial does and we have no idea what turning it from 1 to 10 really means, but you're quite sure that the pie coming out of your black box tastes better. Perhaps it does, but we don't know what we've done and we can't replicate it. Tough to show that your pie is objectively better under those conditions.

We don't have time in this life to go through the entire subject of the human condition.
I get that. Navel gazing that deep and that long would probably glaze me over anyway, so I'm fine with shorthand.

That's because I consider any serious exchange to be about precisely that, an exchange. Not a debate with a winner or a loser.
That's always what the losers say. :D
 
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We agree on that. I believe (and in this context "believe" would not be the educated guess definition but rather something more akin to a faith definition) that I have that capacity. While such capacity is in no way unique to me, I also don't think it's common to the "unwashed masses". Simply, that group of people share a broad knowledge base, the ability to organize a problem and develop a coherent approach for working with it, and clinical detachment. There's a certain level of ego in that hypothesis, although ultimately it's just another skill set no different than tying one's shoes is a skill set—there's no "rank" associated with having or not having that particular skill set.
Math and models tend to go hand-in-hand, but you could think of it as a black box process if a more "pliant" image tastes better to you. We throw a pot of "stuff" into the box, turn a handful of dials, and one and only one result pops out.

Well, I don't think you're alone in believing yourself capable of it. Personally, I think it's incredibly naive to believe oneself even being in the vicinity of such capacity.

Still, there's really no way of convincingly demonstrating it here - so it's just something we'll have to disagree on.

All I can say is that from what I know of you and your position on a variety of issues, I don't think you have much of a chance of being objectively right about much of anything relating to questions of life. If you were, it'd be luck more than having the capacity to separate the important from the noise.

No insult intended - and remember that I'm most certainly not claiming to have anything like that capacity myself.

For any given problem, there's ultimately only a handful of factors that are statistically significant. The other bazzilion aspects can safely be lumped into a noise factor. That's where the need to determine negligible factors comes into play—all sides have to agree what makes up the significant handful, otherwise the problem becomes unwieldy and discussion becomes pointless.

Again, that's something I'm sure you really believe. My experience, however, is that there are always factors that get overlooked - simply based on our complete and total lack of the mental capacity required to take into account all that's there. You need to be aware of what's there to determine the weight of it - and the problem is not so much separating the important from the noise - but actually realising the extent of potential relevance.

Which is something human beings excel at messing up. We're talking insanity levels of constantly forgetting our mistakes and just keeping on thinking we can really determine what's right in a complex real life scenario.

You put a dial on the black box with the label "knowledge of the human condition". We have no idea what that dial does and we have no idea what turning it from 1 to 10 really means, but you're quite sure that the pie coming out of your black box tastes better. Perhaps it does, but we don't know what we've done and we can't replicate it. Tough to show that your pie is objectively better under those conditions.

You're going a bit far with your dial and black box metaphor. It sounds like we're back to you believing that I've claimed anything of mine is objectively better.

I haven't.

Also, I'm not really sure what I'm saying is right - but I'm confident enough to suggest that it is. Again, I can deal with uncertainty - or I'd have to passively sit in a corner and do nothing for the rest of my life.

That's always what the losers say. :D

I'll take your word for that ;)
 
As an aside:

Actually maths is used in many many things to model things. For example, your computer that you're using right now has been modelled using many different mathematical functions to describe how the electronic currents, voltages, capacitances, inductances and so on revolve and interact with one another.

Every engineer knows those models are overt simplifications of what is really happening but like dte said: in most cases, you can simplify things or even just pretend they do not exist and it would not affect your model nor the real-life results.

So for simple maths:
V = RI ( Voltage equals resistance multiplied by current )
Some people learn this in school while others learn it at university. But in reality it's not true. The first step towards making it more complex is to add time to the equation:
V(t) = R(t)I(t) (Meaning, they all depend on time)

Same here with the human whatever thingy majigy (hwtm). hwtm = What Dart thinks hwtm is + what dte thinks hwtm is + noise (what Thrasher thinks hwtm is + what I think hwtm is).

Since neither Dart nor dte care about Thrasher's or my opinion, you can remove that from the equation.

I am sure EVERYONE understood what I am talking about. :)

Good night.
 
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Thank you for that (I think). I agree that modeling is just a more formal method of describing how something behaves. If one thinks people's behavior can't be described (or is unknown or even unknowable), then that's another problem...
 
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Since neither Dart nor dte care about Thrasher's or my opinion, you can remove that from the equation.

I care about all opinions, but of course the degree to which I care will vary. You've always seemed a reasonable person capable of being fair in a debate - and you don't get personal. As such, I take your opinions very seriously - even if I don't agree with some of them.

What you're saying, as I understand it, is basically the same thing DTE is saying?

That you can systematize the relevant elements that factor into any given scenario in life.

As in, you're claiming that you can determine if someone is "right" or "wrong" / "correct" or "incorrect" when killing themselves - by placing all relevant factors into a formula of some kind.

You're claiming that you can determine whether someone should enter into a relationship with another person, if you put all relevant factors into your formula.

You propose we can come up with the correct and ONLY answer for any such scenario?

Frankly, I find that laughably naive or arrogant - whichever you prefer :)

That said, I should add that if you COULD potentially gather all relevant data to any given life scenario, it might not be impossible to come up with a correct answer.

But what I'm saying, basically, is that the human mind (including all our tools and sharing of information) is utterly and TOTALLY incapable of gathering all relevant data to even the simpler of scenarios that happen in life.

Conclusively, no one in the entire world can come up with the "correct and only" answer to any question of life with certainty - if it even approaches the slightest complexity.

However, we're all capable of approximating answers that might be reasonable in many scenarios. I mean, that's what I'm making do with - and that's why I can't say with any amount of certainty that Amanda Todd shouldn't have killed herself - or that she had too many freedoms for that to happen. Because I just have no fucking idea.

Even if I'd been her close friend, I wouldn't be able to answer that. I might be able to approximate a reasonable answer based on an informed opinion - but unlike DTE (and you?) - I would understand that certainty wouldn't be involved.
 
Actually I was saying exactly what you said at the end, which to me seemed what dte was saying:

However, we're all capable of approximating answers that might be reasonable in many scenarios.

So while an undeniably correct answer might be impossible an approximately correct answer, which is acceptable to most people is not.

This is what I gathered dte meant when he was saying (paraphrasing):
About 2 + Approximately 2 + Almost 0 = Almost 4 = 4 for all intents and purposes.

Yeah, it might not be 4. It might even be 5 if your approximations are to the first decimal point (2.3 + 2.4 + 0.3 = 5 =/= 4) and then your model might be too far off the answer, since your model said it would have been 4. But if your model takes enough variables into account and is quite precise, then your model can in fact be accurate for a large enough percentage of situations.

I'm also not saying that everything can be done like this, because I'm not that well-versed in it, but I know many things can. Currently the human brain is too complex to be able to do it, but people have managed to map out small circuits of neurons.

Since our brains have millions of them, it will be a while before we could understand human beings.

When I say correct, I don't mean right or wrong, but more what the person would do. Not why.

I also am not trying to talk about ethic or morality of the issue.

So if you mean correct as in right/wrong then I didn't really get the topic much.

I'm now confused as to what was meant :(
 
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DTE claims there's ultimately only a single correct answer to any given question. That's basically our point of contention.

I'm saying that though there might be a correct answer to any given question, we're incapable of establishing it with certainty. Totally and utterly incapable - and when it comes to complex issues in life - our approximations are based on such weak underpinning - that they might as well be random. That's my experience with life and the absurd amount of factors that enter into each of us and how every single individual is based on entirely different experiences and future paths.

There's no technology or human capacity that can establish a system which would give anything like a single correct answer. That DTE believes himself capable of providing it - is a joke to me.
 
I'm of a third viewpoint then. There are more than one correct answer to many questions. There are many approximations to correct answers to most questions.

So back to my models. Models can give you a good approximation to most questions.
 
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I'm of a third viewpoint then. There are more than one correct answer to many questions. There are many approximations to correct answers to most questions.

So back to my models. Models can give you a good approximation to most questions.

Well, if you think you can come up with a model that will give you a good approximation to MOST questions of life - I think you should start developing it.

I'm quite sure you could become a very, very rich man if you succeeded. You could potentially help a LOT of people in a very big way.

Personally, I think it's infinitely more complex than you or DTE imagine - and I'm not suggesting it's because I'm smarter. I just think I have spent more time thinking about these things than most people. That, or I'm the stupid one who can't see how one would go about developing such a system.

But I do use a kind of model when I approximate answers. It's based on my experience, intuition, empathy and stuff like that. Something that I wouldn't even attempt to formalise and systematize. I wouldn't know how or where to begin. But I'd certainly be very curious to see someone try.
 
I think you're trying to extend a theory for individual decision making into one for universal truths, but perhaps this will help clarify. I apologize for the commercial source, but it shows what I need.
ce-matrix-jpeg.JPG

http://lssacademy.com/2007/06/11/need-help-making-decisions/

This explains how you get from your "infinite variables of human emotion" down to something more manageable. You'll also note that the rankings are individualized and opinion-based. This partially explains how different people can look at the same situation and come up with different answers—they choose different critical inputs based on what's important to them.

For example, a religious zealot might go so far as to condemn Amanda Todd because suicide damns the soul. The biblical factor carries a high importance value to the zealot, a 10 on the matrix. As an aggressive agnostic, I couldn't give two hoots about her soul so that doesn't even figure into my analysis of the situation, a 0 on my matrix. Different people will have different inputs.

Once you establish the inputs that matter, you can (mis-, technically)use the same matrix structure to determine the one and only one correct answer by assigning weight values. It works out much like an FMEA, although the structure and intent is a little different. So you look at your criteria, and define how well each input satisfies those criteria to you. Multiply it all out. High score wins and that's your one and only one answer. Now, tomorrow your weighting factors may change, or your "satisfaction" values may change, and it's entirely possible a different answer gets the high score. Generally, if you've done things right that won't happen, but if it did that would reflect a situation that's really, really grey for you. Similarly, my matrix is going to look different from yours, so the answer spitting out of my matrix might look different as well.

To some extent, it reflects our differing outlooks. You like to think of "life" as a big ball of chaos sprinkled with pixie dust that demands and deserves a sense of overwhelming wonderment. I like to think of "life" as a wildly complex puzzle sprinkled with hidden pieces that demands and deserves a resolve to solve it. My approach will appear to you as wildly arrogant and "spoiling the magic". Your approach will appear to me as a bit of a copout and "manufacturing mystery". Not that either approach is necessarily wrong, they're just different.
 
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This explains how you get from your "infinite variables of human emotion" down to something more manageable. You'll also note that the rankings are individualized and opinion-based. This partially explains how different people can look at the same situation and come up with different answers—they choose different critical inputs based on what's important to them.

Ehm, no, it doesn't explain anything terribly useful. It shows tables of percentages of something that makes no sense in relation to what we're talking about.

Not to me, anyway.

For example, a religious zealot might go so far as to condemn Amanda Todd because suicide damns the soul. The biblical factor carries a high importance value to the zealot, a 10 on the matrix. As an aggressive agnostic, I couldn't give two hoots about her soul so that doesn't even figure into my analysis of the situation, a 0 on my matrix. Different people will have different inputs.

If you're truly agnostic - you shouldn't be indifferent to her soul. You'd have to account for the possibility of a soul - and you'd end up with something other than zero.

But that's a good example of attempting to simplify a scenario that's anything but simple.

That said, we can certainly agree that you can come up with a correct answer that's totally useless and irrelevant to the real question at hand by ignoring everything except what you think you know is relevant. You can do it by changing the question into something that's nothing like the question and calling it the same question.

Once you establish the inputs that matter, you can (mis-, technically)use the same matrix structure to determine the one and only one correct answer by assigning weight values. It works out much like an FMEA, although the structure and intent is a little different. So you look at your criteria, and define how well each input satisfies those criteria to you. Multiply it all out. High score wins and that's your one and only one answer. Now, tomorrow your weighting factors may change, or your "satisfaction" values may change, and it's entirely possible a different answer gets the high score. Generally, if you've done things right that won't happen, but if it did that would reflect a situation that's really, really grey for you. Similarly, my matrix is going to look different from yours, so the answer spitting out of my matrix might look different as well.

There is no "my matrix" - because I can't create one. That's my point. People believing themselves capable of creating one that's useful in terms of delivering the single correct answer are what I call laughably naive or arrogant.

To some extent, it reflects our differing outlooks. You like to think of "life" as a big ball of chaos sprinkled with pixie dust that demands and deserves a sense of overwhelming wonderment. I like to think of "life" as a wildly complex puzzle sprinkled with hidden pieces that demands and deserves a resolve to solve it. My approach will appear to you as wildly arrogant and "spoiling the magic". Your approach will appear to me as a bit of a copout and "manufacturing mystery". Not that either approach is necessarily wrong, they're just different.

I'm not sure why you think of my outlook as containing magic. Magic doesn't enter into it at all.

I recognise the human lack of capacity to establish a correct answer to a meaningful question of life. Because they can't create a matrix that would get anywhere near a stage where it could possibly include all relevant factors.

We wouldn't even be able to create a matrix for ourselves as individuals. Because we can't possibly establish all revelant details - which would include the ability to predict the future and remember things from before our memory was functional.

To make it less fuzzy, I'll talk about World of Warcraft.

I used to spend several hours each day for several years, trying to figure out the best build, playstyle and gear setup for delivering optimal DPS (damage per second). What I found was that for every, say, thousand people who claimed to be able to establish the perfect build - there was a single person who came close to it - and yet still very far.

Why? Because even in something as comparatively simplistic as a computer game with a limited amount of ways to interact with it - even the most elite players with the most insight into the game - couldn't take into account all the relevant factors. I won't go into too much detail - because it's really a very complex subject, but suffice it to say that it was a very interesting learning experience for me, regarding the value of "expert opinion".

But what WAS possible, was to boil everything down to very exclusive scenarios - like if you were 100% stationary and the mob you were fighting was absolutely stationary - and you knew exactly what buffs/debuffs came into play - and you could rely 100% on everyone else doing exactly what was required for the conclusion to be true - then yes, you could come up with a correct answer for that tiny and completely useless (in a pragmatic sense) scenario. That sort of answer would then be translated by the uninformed masses into some kind of universal truth - and a "cookie cutter build" was the result.

Now, I won't deny that such answers could be useful given the knowledge of how imprecise they were - and be applied as reasonable approximations related to a limited variety of scenarios.

But they would never, and could never be "correct" in the strict sense of the word.

I would call them guides of limited use.

For questions of life - we're talking an amount of factors a thousand-fold larger - and that's only the ones we can potentially perceive.
 
Well, I am not going to pretend I KNOW the models or how to create them, but I know that people are working on them every single day.

Very smart people too...

While they may not be there yet, I am saying that they are going to get good approximations.
For example, my final year project in uni was to help with the development of a model on how neurons fire for different stimuli. It was still in early development, but the main guy on the project had many ideas on how to do it and how to account for many peculiarities. Of course, his system was quite simplified and only used between 50-100 neurons, but there are animals that live on 200-300 neurons. So if he could understand the intricacies of the 50-100, that would already explain a lot for more too, albeit in a simplified way.


A friend of mine who studied aeronautical engineering told me his professor was the one who successfully modelled why a sharp knife cut some things better than a blunt one and how the thinness of the blade helped decide what type of material too I think.

That's all done using maths and equations. I am sure however that the model had its own imperfections, but that for all intents and purposes, that model could be used in our day-to-day lives and for industrial applications.

Another example of maths and physics is how drums can be modelled using the wave equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_equation). The sound can be investigated using this model. While it's not perfect, more intricacies can be added later such as material used, and so on.


So again (imo):
No, not everything can currently be modelled or approximated.
Some things can only be approximated to a very large tolerance level.
Many things can be approximated to an acceptable tolerance level.
Most things can be approximated to a good tolerance level.
Some things are too complex to ever be approximated at anything but a super high tolerance level.


But I do use a kind of model when I approximate answers. It's based on my experience, intuition, empathy and stuff like that. Something that I wouldn't even attempt to formalise and systematize. I wouldn't know how or where to begin. But I'd certainly be very curious to see someone try.

That's one of the things people do. Except that while your brain is very complex and intricate, it cannot evaluate so many factors at the same time, without sometimes getting overwhelmed.

For example, you might have approximative answers to how educating a child works, while others would have different answers.

X might say that corporal punishment is standard to educate a child, while Y might say it's only to be used in some specific and extreme circumstances, while might say Never !.

Who is right ?

Well, you use what knowledge you have to say what is correct in this instance. Your answer would usually come from your experience (childhood, friends, your own children), literature review (books, newspapers), ....

Many/most people take most of their answers from their own experience. so someone who got beat up as a child but is now successful might say, look where it got me ! Of course I'll beat my children too. Or vice versa for someone who did not get beaten and also became successful.

Another type of person who got beaten but became successful might say that it was DESPITE being beaten that he got where he is now.

Some people use literature a lot to influence them with less thought put on their own experience. So someone might say that by reading articles and journals they realised that out of 100000, 62% of people getting beaten have some sort of trauma for the rest of their lives and as such would not beat their own children.

Another might see an opposite study that says that 38% of children who do not get beatings go on to be more rude and disrespectful, loiter more, drink more alcohol as kids. So that person might beat his kids because of that.

(See % add to 100%. That was done on purpose to also show that studies can easily be manipulated :p)

So while there might not seem to be a correct answer, you could say there are several approximative answers.

In reality there might be a correct answer. A way to find the correct answer might be to look at more factors i.e. not just a binary beaten or not. maybe it's important to look at frequency of beatings, reasons for beatings, strength of beatings, types of beatings....

So this just means we need a more complex model, but not that models aren't good enough.

Did that make sense ?
:?

Also, I would please ask not to dissect my post into many different postings and ask me to answer hundreds of different questions. Jemy has a logical thing for that, but basically, I wouldn't have time to respond to such things.

This post has also been written quite quickly and there might be many inaccuracies, but I hope people get my point. :D
 
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