Category: Context
Posted on January 3, 2021
Coherency and the Game Combos
In statistics, one learns very early on that independent random variations tend to cancel out when grouped together. By the law of large numbers, the collective behavior of many independent random entities tends to closely reflect the average behavior of these entities. This is very convenient if we see the random variations as being meaningless noise and were only interested in the average. But if the variations contained all the interesting complexity, then the complexity is washed away in the aggregate. In a generic society, the generics may be highly varied and individually very complex. Naively put them in a group and the collective behavior is simpler – quite plausibly, the variations cancel toward zero and the group achieves nothing as a whole.
This all changes if the random variations were not independent and tended to align along certain dimensions. The variations will be amplified wherever they align, and the collective behavior of the group cleanly emphasizes the alignment of its constituents. If we want a group of generics to retain a meaningful identity distinct from the average of its members, we need to give the generics a desire to align with each other in behavior or motivation. The topic of today’s post is the coherency domain, which contains ideas that lend well to being mixed with other constructs to describe nontrivial social behaviors. As an example, I will use concepts from the coherency domain to describe the gaming combos, which are a set of methods for creating alignment even between unrelated or mutually exclusive activities through the common participation of a bigger event.
Updated on September 12, 2020
Of Lenses and Experiences
What secrets can we find, deep within the generic mind?
What secrets will he find, through lenses trapped within his own mind?
In my previous post, I explained how context deeply permeates every thought and action in the generic society, and how mistakes such as the internal attribution error or the rational choice assumption constantly prevent generics from connecting with one another. Did my overall pessimism about the generics’ ability to understand context change the way you view their society? Are most generics forced to experience life in total emotional isolation? What value is there in a life without shared experiences or the ability to form a deeper connection with others?
Sure, the generics constantly fight or argue over petty issues, but at least they haven’t collectively despaired and declared all their interactions meaningless. Generics are usually aware of their limited ability to contextualize each other’s actions, so clearly they must still value something. As it turns out, generics aren’t fatalistic beings waiting for a meaningless life to flash before their eyes. Each generic sentient being is on a journey of self-improvement, slowly tweaking his beliefs to accommodate the seemingly incomprehensible choices of those around him. The generics will find meaning in their interpretations and judgments even if they later find flaws in their reasoning. They feel euphoric when they understand a friend slightly better than before, even if his choices still seem like a complete mystery. If you had backdoor access to the generic mind, you could watch hundreds of generics bumping into one another trying making sense of their jumbled world, and truly appreciate the inevitability of this lifelong journey. The analyst in me naturally wanted to know if these generics had any hope of success. Of course, in my attempt to answer this question I ended up creating a very complex theory on the inner workings of the generic mind.
Updated on April 4, 2018
Out of Context, Out of Reach
In a confusing world where no move makes sense,
We must look deeper into the fog and see the context behind each event as it unfolds.
Without telepathic abilities, we could never know for sure how other people think or why they choose to behave in certain ways. This definitely hasn’t stopped us from trying though – our minds tirelessly produce, refine and share organized beliefs (or schemata) about how others act based on our past experiences. These beliefs are sometimes based on time-tested theories in psychology, but more often than not they’re just basic intuitions a person has about his friends or enemies. Whether we choose to laugh away a person’s quirky behavior, briefly scowl at an act of impoliteness, or openly attack a group of individuals after one of its members did something slightly unpleasant, we mostly rely on schemata to interpret and eventually judge each other’s actions.
Our hard-earned beliefs don’t generalize to the unpredictable thoughts and decisions of the generic sentient beings though. In the absence of other information, a generic’s actions essentially have no inherent meaning.
