Friday, October 18, 2013

Oversimplification

http://kieryn.com/Slides/View/55



After I did this slide I felt it needed a bit more explanation.

I had the idea about a week ago and it went through a few phases of evolution and the day I finally drew it I was actually really sick so I don't think I got a chance to illustrate my ideas that well.

Here's a breakdown of it:

It's 3 plots showing the % of maximum possible life time accomplishment at any given stage of life.

The purple plot is the actual maximum you could possibly have achieve during your life thus far at each age. I kind of have the idea that most people have the most productive potential from their mid-twenties onward due to experience, but maybe this view is outdated and of course we all know there are exceptions.

The green plot is of what you believe you can achieve during your life at any given age. I realize this is probably the least obvious of the graphs and it's addition might actually be confusing the whole joke. The point I wanted to illustrate here is that 4 is a key age, when what you believe is possible tends to infinity. This happens because your awareness of potential in the universe grows faster than your awareness of limitation. My son is four and a half now... I can vouch for this.

The final red plot is just a simple straight line showing that we underachieve. The main joke of the slide is of course that the formula for the typical low potential plot is much simpler than the maximum potential one. 

There is also the second joke of the whole concept of coming up with what are all essentially simple mathematical formulas to predict lifetime accomplishment (perceived or otherwise) is itself a gross oversimplification.

Anyway, for anyone concerned I'm feeling much better after a couple of days of rest.


FooPlot is the cool free web tool I use for graphing stuff.

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