Red alert!! Communication Glitch in our programmings!!!

Have you ever been embarassed after a statement? Forced into damaged control?? Feel stupid after the fact?? You might be aware of them or you might not, but there's an error in our *programming*.(Yes I treat brains as computers and mindsets as softwares =p). Here's probably one of the reason why.

Error: Treating Inferences as facts.

Fact: A statement or claim that can be objectively verfied or proven. For example: The date today is March 23 . Wood comes mainly from trees. The tallest man-made structure to date is the Burj Dubai skyscraper.

Inference: process of reasoning from premises to a deduction or conclusion. Inferences are inevitable. Our problem arises when we treat inferences as automatic fact. It happens that our brain auto-process infos based on association, relevance and logical reasoning. This is to quickly filter out and deal with the loads of info it receives, both trivial and crucial so it does not overload and short-circuit itself.So be careful. Your inference can be your error.

Examples:

• You see a poorly dressed customer walk into your store and conclude they don't have money to spend.
• You see a woman with a fuller figure wearing a billowing blouse. You congratulate her on her upcoming pregnancy.
• You see a college student normally attired in jeans enter the room sporting a business suit. You assume they had a job interview.
• You hear a voice over the fast-food intercom. You say "Thank you, Sir" at order completion. You drive up and painfully learn that voice belonged to a woman.
• You hear the word "nurse" or "dancer" and immediately decode this as "female". Conversely, you hear "construction worker" or "engineer" and decode "male".
• You see two people standing together at a social situation. You believe they are a couple.
• You see a person driving an expensive car. You assume that he is well off.
• You pick up on a charred smell. You assume whatever your friend is cooking, you'll be looking at a black plate on the table.
• You hear a police siren go off your neighbourhood. You assume there's something big going on around the corner.
• You see a pair of bride and bridesgroom. You went up to congratulate them only to know that the man wearing the tuxedo is the best man.

Solution: It's only human for you to make inferences. Just don't automatically give them "fact" status.

"The brain processes 400 Billion bits of information a second. BUT, we are ONLY aware of 2,000 of those." -Dr. Joseph Dispenza, D.C.

Don't blame your biological processor. It's only doing what's right to keep itself from blowing up its circuitry into bits.

Content credits to LisaMarie Luccioni

TacTics19

Malicious Maths and Problematic Probability

Statistics is employed in a wide range of fields. Banks, investors and gamblers exploit it to earn millions and billions of dollars every year. Everyone agrees that the right use of statistics is advantageous. However, Mr. Statistics can be tricky. I want to demonstrate this using probabilities and to warn people not to take statistics, especially probabilities, at its face value.

Let's say I have this game of dice. There's a host and a player. The game is played with the player choosing a number from 1 to 6, then tossing an unbiased 6-sided die. If the die shows a face value matching the number chosen by the player, the host pays the player $9. If it doesn't match, then the player pays the host $1. The question is, in the long run and if you are the player, is it profitable to play this game? Now many people would think, 'Hey! Why not?? An unbiased 6-sided die means each face shows 1/6 of the time! That means I will lose 5 times and win once on average, earning me $5 approximately every 6 rounds ($10 - 5x$1).' Many people would be wrong. They have forgotten that a number has to be chosen to match. Now, the probability of choosing 1 of the 6 numbers will already be 1/6. The probability of the die face showing the chosen number will be another 1/6. Combined together, the probability of getting a die face value matching your chosen number will be 1/36!!!!! (1/6 x 1/6) That means you lose $35 for every $10 win!!!

Another example: faced with an unbiased 3 choices dilemma with each choice carrying 1/3 chance to the correct answer, choosing any option gives you 1/3 of being correct while the rest of 2/3 are held by the other 2 choices. These 2 choices carry 1/3 each to the correct answer. Therefore the chance of getting the correct answer from choosing any of the other 2 is 2/3 x 1/3 = 2/9, versus 1/3 from your initial first choice. It is now statistically proven that unless there is a change, it is always the best to stay with your first choice. Similarly, imagine a scenario where the chance of getting what you want is 50%, and you only have one try. Now, you might think that getting what you want is 50% for that try. That might sounds true, but it doesn't matter. You see, let's take a large number. Say, infinite! Now, if you have infinite try, you will get what you want 50% of the time. But what matters is the one try you have now. You should then be aware that the probability of that one try carrying what you want is actually 1/4, i.e, 1/2 the probability of that try carrying what you want multiplied by 1/2 the probability of that try being one of the 50% of infinite tries that carry what you want.

So you can see, a lot of times, it's not the fault of the world that statistics lie to you. It's your fault for being ignorant of more variables. After all, stochasticity in nature is part of the wonder of this world!!! Before I end this, I would like to remind readers (or maybe reader or even no one) that I am not an expert on statistics nor do I agree on everything I have written. Also, I would like to wish a happy belated birthday to some of the special people in my life, Adeline Sung and Hui Yi, because I missed out on greeting them on time:

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!!!!

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