I make a lot of probability trees.
It's because I love the idea of quantifying emotional data. People are so hard to predict or understand, so making trees, or diagrams, or charts makes it feel a lot easier.
Take a conversation with a friend, for instance. If I heard she was mad at me, and she acted a bit distant - but I didn't know of anything I did wrong, and we had soft plans that weekend - I might make a chart of possible actions I could take based on her behaviour in the interaction. Things like:
She says hi?
/ \
yes no
/ \
ask about her day ignore
| ^
vague answer? |
/ \ |
no yes ---------------------
/
chat !
if 'chat !'; if 'ignore';
- weather - headphones in but only one
- sports in case she talks
- homework
That formatting's gotta look so ugly on mobile. But you get the gist.
It's like this sorting algorithm I saw online and forgot the name of. Where the machine checks each number starting from the 2nd, and deletes any that aren't in order. Sorts things efficiently, strongly, and quickly - but loses details along the way.
That's like how my analyses (apparently that's the plural? Isn't that just the verb?!? Why isn't it 'analysises!!?! Anyway) - lose the nuance of human interactions.
Another example: say I want to ask my mother a favour, and she'll do it - but only if she's not mad at me. If she is mad at me, I don't want to ask. Let's also pretend I forgot to defrost the chicken and take out the recycling:
start with 0 points
approach mother and assess mood:
/ \
happy (+5) not happy (-5)
she noticed chicken cold? she noticed recycling?
/ \ / \
yes (-3) no (+0) yes (-2) no (+0)
if point total <2: favour denied
if point total >2: favour accepted
therefore:
good mood + no + no = 5 = accepted
good mood + no + yes = 3 = accepted
good mood + yes + no = 2 = accepted
good mood + yes + yes = 0 = denied
bad mood + any = <2 = denied
So using that logic, I can catch a single glimpse at her, see she's mad and not even bother asking the favour. Which is stupid, seeing as those point totals don't actually exist, I just randomly decided on them.
It feels scientific and accurate because there's hard data involved. But the data is entirely based on my biased perceptions. It's a losing battle no matter how you play it - people, that is. If I falsely quantify it, I'll miss small cues, but if I play it by ear, I might see it completely wrong.
I'm not sure what I was leading up to here, I just felt like drawing some lines. I suppose my point is just: conversations are confusing. But tree diagrams look soooo cool :3