Monday, November 2, 2009

Scripts

It popped into my head that we're all, more or less running off scripts. Depending on your age and circumstance your response to any given situation is predictable.

I was busy with 'morning' and realized that I'd hoed this row before and will no doubt do it again and it's pretty much scripted in our minds our roles, where we ought to be at a given time etc.

If I put some thought into it, I could give a 'rendition' of what the regular commenters on this blog are going to say in response, given that we've all come to know each other's scripts.

I wonder if Pliny has anything interesting to say about artificial intelligence and if an intelligent machine would need to follow 'mental' scripts as we do? I am absolutely positive that he does, it'll be very interesting and it'll call into question the nature of intelligencc itself!

Stacy is going to say, "Hmmm.. you made me think again! (secretly:- Darn you!) ((just kiddin' Stacy!)

I could make up stuff for other commenters like a comedian making up 'Bushisms', but to get to my point, I'm thinking that the ladies realise how scripted and self-scripted our lives are a lot better then men do.

It's just 'there' though and not examined for what it is, more used as a tool, a way of being 'mysterious' and such. I think, where a guy might be trying to make a point, the girl is trying to find out which script is being played, perhaps trying to cut off scripts that she doesn't like, off at the pass, perhaps trying to guide the guy into a script in which he is 'out of his league', that kind of thing.

Brian, with his big brain 'theory', seems to be a script to me. I play my role as the total skeptic and he dodges and weaves, seemingly determined to keep pushing the idea that there's more meaning to this universe than we (want to?) think.

I know that there's been books written about this, "What do you say after, "Hello!"?", which brings up, I wonder what our scripts are about the 'question of scripts'?

Does it interfere with our notion of free-will?
How much scripting is involved with religion?
Is something necessarilly less 'free' if it is TOTALLY scripted?
Isn't a job just a physical manifestation of mental scripting?

Now I can imagine some of you(you know who you are) thinking, "This is totally, totally Ian! That last post was odd, but I 'get' this one!"

37 comments:

Richelle said...

interesting observation.

i can see where you would see brian's "bb" as a script. his responses to any arguments were quite predictable.

and i think you're also right about women picking up on them a lot better than men do. i've pretty much figured out all of danny's scripts and, as any good wife should, challenge him when i see him falling back on them.

but i suppose that is just how we operate. we like to stick with what we know because, st times, venturing outside of that comfort zone makes us feel vulnerable.

and i must admit, i'm curious to know what you think my "script" would be in any given situation.

... or maybe not.

;)

Asylum Seeker said...

Heh. I honestly don't think that I am too predictable (save for certain idiosyncrasies in the way I structure my sentences). I could run on a few scripts, I could lack free will, but this predestined pattern that I am supposed to adhere to is invisible to me, so it doesn't even matter.

Though, I will admit, I have seen scripting happen before. I have seen "conversations" that have amounted to two people basically saying the same thing over and over again to each other and slightly rephrasing it. This is common online, but it does happen offline as well. It always make me sad, and sometimes, I wonder if the brains of the people involved had glitched.

mac said...

Oh yeah?...... OK, you found my "script" in that last line.

pboyfloyd said...

I totally think that our scripts are necessary and that the best one to know what they are is each person his or herself.

Without us doing this, no-one would have a clue as to what to expect from anyone, and, of course that can be a bad thing as well as a good one.

A lot of our personality is scripts, as in, how we react in any given situation and I think that it IS 'alterable' over time or even suddenly under catastrophic conditions, such as under fire or after a big loss or gain.

Richelle, I don't think that I even should be talking to you about 'your specific script'. For one thing I think that each person is armed with quite a few and for another I think that people start feeling leery about another person thinking that they have them 'pegged'.

:o)

Harvey said...

To me, "scripting" is how we manage our interactions with the very complex and often challenging world we live in. If we had to write a new "script" every time a given sequence of events arose, the challenge posed by everyday events would be overwhelming. And so, I think, we need to have a sort of "template" for how we will deal with those events that come up frequently (like our morning routine), so we can apply our thoughts and emotional energy to those infrequent or particularly challenging events that only come up from time to time. You could say that there is just so much room on the disk and our CPU isn't able to carry out so many subroutines at one time
(?computorspeak?).
Why we need to behave this way puts me in mind of the joke that goes:
"Why does it take three women with PMS to screw in a light bulb?.....
It just does!!!"
I think we just do!!

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

Do we follow scripts? Of course we do. We see examples almost every hour of the day. Our brains are even wired to benefit from automated pattern recognition and playback.

Any musicians out there? Ever been in the middle of playing a piece when you made a mistake and then totally fell apart and had to think it through? The reason for that is you are using two separate areas of the brain. One where the algorithm for replaying the piece is housed and another, the higher cognitive centers where the error has to be mitigated. It's why (many) can chew gum and walk at the same time.

Ever been talking and find that you had driven yourself instinctively to some other place? All these are example of imprinted patterns that we play back in order to get anything done.

Then there are all the animal instinctive patterned behaviors that are evidenced in any public place. Aggression, territorial displays and attraction. All these are pretty patterned responses.

In an example of free will, no mention of AI was used in this post....

pboyfloyd said...

..or Harvey, you could say that we handle scripts so well, that we automatically disregard them while they are within preset parameters, which have been prefigured by us through trial and error.

If you've ever been in the middle of typing your comment and been disrupted, let's say, by a significant other wanting you to know that dinner is ready, that's the point where your 'thinking' stops. I think that that is what you, Pliny are trying to capture in a computer program.

We have script subroutines. For example, if Emma disturbs my thoughts while I'm typing, I reach for the baseball bat and head through to give her(yet another) lumping out!(that doesn't happen)

That joke was hilarious, Harvey, I could 'hear' the anger.

I think that you are kind of chickening out there Pliny. I think that you guys have figured out that if you put enough branches into an 'intelligence' emulation script, the program could appear quite intelligent yet be 'stupid' which reflects how 'stupid' we all REALLY ARE!

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

I think that you are kind of chickening out there Pliny. I think that you guys have figured out that if you put enough branches into an 'intelligence' emulation script, the program could appear quite intelligent yet be 'stupid' which reflects how 'stupid' we all REALLY ARE!

---------------
Chickening out - no - just trying to exert free will and not behave in a pattern as described and thereby go unscripted ;)

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

Ok Ok! I'll fall in line with my assigned roll...

The notion of scripting (heuristics) is of course very important to both cognitive and behavior psychology and machine intelligence research.

One of the things we have done in the lab that is very different from how people analyze data is the notion of 'stateless' cognition. We humans - unless certain areas of the brain are damaged, use state in our cognition - i.e., we build assessments of new experiences based on previous ones. That can be good but it is also the source of a lot of our bias errors. Not to pick on B but one could explain synchronicity as a self reinforcing and fulfilling pattern bias based upon misinterpretation of historical data.

Learning is only good if you don't learn bad habits.

In the research we use an AI program that essentially is like poor old Guy Pierce in Memento. The computer has no actual memory of any event prior to now (even ones milliseconds in the past). That means that it has to exert a fair amount of computational power to reassess all its data each time it runs, but it also means that it has no order, confirmation or a large number of other cognitive biases.

Is it intelligent? No. But is it really good at solving problems? Yep.

Will it ever write poetry? Not likely but it wasn't built for that.

pboyfloyd said...

Wow, so you're saying that AI, or at least YOUR AI, has abandoned the human brain/mind as a model altogether!

So we can't expect a robot-robot story to go like, ".. and then I said, I see your biggest problem, master, it's that twenty pounds of ugly fat attached to your neck!... bzzm-bzzm-bzzm-bzzm( robot laughter)!!!"

Anonymous said...

You are the determinist. If I have a variable, you know the number. Freewill bugs you and you use your own words and phrases: 'script' 'mind model of reality' to come back to it again and again.

Moth to flame business.

You set up the post responses so that even if chaos from one of us appeared on your screen, it would just be our 'unpredictability script.' Nice.

BTW, your last post wasn't illegitimate, if you think that's valuable you should do it. Don't let our presumed(?) inefficacy stop you. But then you don't have a choice in the matter do you?

And oneblood doesn't have a choice but to start pboy responses but with a critique then weave in perhaps a qualification or joke, and something encouraging (demonstrating affinity or affection).

I have to emphasize though pboy, your freewill v. determinsim thing is one of those binaries/false dichotomies you dismissed earlier. I don't even think you realize (ha ha) that you operate according to the classic argument.

And you, intelligent as you are, end up in circularity.

'We do things because we do them.'

If I took all your posts about determinism and boiled them down in a pot of reason, there would only be a fallacy.

A somewhat charming kilted fallacy.

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

Wow, so you're saying that AI, or at least YOUR AI, has abandoned the human brain/mind as a model altogether!

-------------------
Short answer - yes.

We view the role of AI in our lab as tools to overcome human cognitive limitations. To mimic human thought process would be to bias the system potentially in the same way. So our AI is evolving from a very different ocean that the one that spawned its authors. It helps that it faces very different challenges from our ancestors as well.

Our approach is more akin to industrial robots. Welding robots at a car plant aren't terribly cute or anthropomorphic, but they do some things much better and/or more precise than us.

I think the field of android robotics has more utility in the area of prosthetics than in managing the kinds of problems best done with AI.

GearHedEd said...

My personal script is too boring and mundane to report in detail.

But a script it is.

pboyfloyd said...

Wow oneblood, you seem to be bending over backwards to reply in your usual 'script'(which I'm not saying there is anything wrong with at all.)

If you noticed, the thing about affecting free-will was a question.

But you ARE right about the fact that your comments to me DO seem to follow a pattern.


No oneblood the argument for plain reality doesn't need to 'not be circular' at all, considering that reality plus/or included in super-reality(i.e. with gods, the spiritual and such) IS VERY CIRCULAR.. all we need in that 'duel' is Occam's Razor.

No fake 'simplifying' allowed though, as in, "God did it! How simple do you want it?", because that might 'neatly' encompass the Universe while leaving 'God' completely unexplained, as you no doubt realise.

Harvey said...

"Why we need to behave this way puts me in mind of the joke that goes:
"Why does it take three women with PMS to screw in a light bulb?.....
It just does!!!"
I think we just do!!

November 3, 2009 6:53 AM"

(Too good a joke not to repeat it!)
I guess I mean by this that our tendency to "script" is as much an evolutionary result of needing to deal with ever more complex survival challenges as any of our other physical changes over the millennia. Pliny's comments about his lab trying to develop AI from a different basic construct than human minds seem to use, (i.e. rapidly comparing new dillemmas to old "templates") by denying it any "memory" to compare to can only work because of the huge increases in processor speed becoming available to computors. We simply don't seem to have the mental "speed" necessary to do this frequently, let alone the lack of emotional overlay that computors have by their very nature. Ergo, when I say "we just do", I am not begging the question (or so it seems to me); I am suggesting that we have developed these mental mechanisms out of evolutionary necessity and especially so in light of the distinct limitations from which the Human brain appears to suffer.
I guess I think that to the extent that our mental capacities impose limitations on the speed of our reasoning, we don't really have as much "free choice" in making decisions as we would like to think we do.

Anonymous said...

I think an argument for plain reality is sufficient.

1. The 'script' assertion on your part is, content wise, in the same vein as all your arguments against freewill.

2. Your argument for 'plain reality' was that someone else's argument is ridiculous.

3. The reason your 'script' theory and your 'mind model of reality' don't work, is because you postulate from inside the machine.

There is no more absolute determisnism than absolute freewill.

4. I don't even think you knew you were re-forming your old argument.

5. "...that might 'neatly' encompass the Universe while leaving 'God' completely unexplained, as you no doubt realise."

Ducks.

Stacy S. said...

" "Why does it take three women with PMS to screw in a light bulb?.....
It just does!!!"


Harvey - I believe we only laugh at things to which we can "relate". Rightnow I am LMAO!!! :-)

pboy - you might be right about scripts but I do believe that they change with age and experience.

(see - that was a LITTLE better than "Hmmm...) :-)

pboyfloyd said...

Well oneblood, I laugh at your repeated attempt to shoe-horn me into saying what you want me to be saying.

Emma's daughter, wiil, on occasion, start her phone conversation with Emma so. "I'm PMSing!"

I envision her ranting around the house making a complete monster of herself.

Still she manages to have a 'happy happy' conversation with her mama.

I can only imagine her hanging up the phone, after five or ten minutes of 'shooting the breeze', thinking, "NOW, where was I?", and woe betide anyone who hasn't ran for cover.

Still, I can see the disconnect, Emma can, the daughter herself can and any 'victim' in her household, they can ALL see the disconnect.

The daughter is admitting that she is playing a role. Don't be getting in HER way if you are classed as an inferior, or classed as 'fair game' in her PMS game.

Stacy. If offended you even to a eensy-weensy degree, I am truly, truly sorry.

Same goes for Brian.

That joke should end, being written, "It just DOES!!!"

Stacy S. said...

Not offended in the slightest! :-)
(just showing you that I'm capable of writing more than two words at a time)

Dang it! There I go again! I don't want anyone to get used to this!!

Anonymous said...

"Well oneblood, I laugh at your repeated attempt to shoe-horn me into saying what you want me to be saying."

It is possible (very), that I'm missing something in this post. And frankly, if you didn't laugh at me occasionally, you wouldn't be as internet endearing as you are.

If I remember correctly (stress if) your very first response to one of my snipes so very long ago on the unspoken one's aol blog was,
"Oh why must you gloat oneblood?"

And I thought, "I'm gloating?" But oddly enough, whether given the facelessness of the internet or some unconscious realization, I didn't dismiss the idea.

I almost always enjoy your posts whether I agree with them or not. I also take them seriously whether I agree with them or not too. You're not some bufoon, just spouting off about whatnot.

May your kilt always be...comfortable? Warm? Tye-dyed? Maple-leafed? And may your posts always be as much you as possible.

pboyfloyd said...

"I almost always enjoy your posts whether I agree with them or not. I also take them seriously whether I agree with them or not too."

And yet this 'end-run' debater's tactic seems familiar from you, oneblood.

If I'm talking about a subject which seems to point to what I've said about free-will, you disregard the topic, claim that you see through it's point and conclude that you don't agree with what I've said about free-will, as if that let's us know what you think about the subject:-Scripts(if I recall)

We can do this end-running with any topic I bring up.

Does it point to my disbelief in the existence of God.

Disregard the entire topic, point out that it 'conveniently' agrees with myself, and tell me that you've already dismissed my conclusions on the larger topic.

Pboyfloyd(subject 'pointing to'>> No Free-will/No God)

Oneblood, "Aha! that points to your conclusions on No Freewill/No God!!!

But now you're not talking about what I wrote, you're talking about the conclusion you believe I'm going for, you're doing an 'end run'.

Do you have anything to say about 'Scripts' except, "I see where you're going with this, and I disagree with that!"?

This is not a time-limited debate, so we don't need to rush to 'wrap up', right?

Couching your comment in terms of a 'wrap up' or 'summary' might give the illusion that you 'covered' the topic when you actually just stuffed it in with other things I've said about free-will and disagreed with THAT, right?

pboyfloyd said...

Or, oneblood, were you just appealing to my sense of fairness and being fair I ought to give my argument even handed consideration, that being that it has a fifty/fifty chance of being right?

e.g. Previously you commented on your views about free will. This comment is blatantly biased towards your previous self. This is (somehow) unfair.


Hey, if YOU are willing to disagree with a previous comment of mine, surely I ought to disagree with that comment half the time?

Anonymous said...

"Couching your comment in terms of a 'wrap up' or 'summary' might give the illusion that you 'covered' the topic when you actually just stuffed it in with other things I've said about free-will and disagreed with THAT, right?"

Ok. That hasn't ever been my intent, but ok. So you're saying I created a 'straw-man,' whether I intended to or not, and thought I "won" the whole shebang. Right?

That's what you're asserting with that paragraph?

---

"Hey, if YOU are willing to disagree with a previous comment of mine, surely I ought to disagree with that comment half the time?"

Ummm. I don't know what you're talking about with the overall thrust of your two posts...except that you might be leading me (as it were) to your point about scripts.

I didn't address 'scripts' because I don't think your base for them is legitimate.

I didn't address the seemingly feminist aspect of the post either, because it was really just an addition to your overall point about 'scripts.'

Which once again I think is based on you believing 2 + 2 = 5.

You'll like this. Logic (of which I have a tenuous grasp at best) teaches the necessity of ignoring extraneous information, distortions etc.

I think 'scripts' is your red-herring. Like a church offering a chicken barbeque with free lemonade for everone in the neighborhood.

Then once everybody gets there, the preacher uses some line like 'Everybody's been thirsty at one time or another. (Who's going to disagree with that)

Ever been thirsty for more than just water? (Most people there will understand) Jesus says that if you follow him you'll never be thirsty again,' then launches into his/her sermon (and whoever does whatever cause now we've reached absolutism).

So why bother addressing that?

With respect, I think 'scripts' is your chicken barbeque with everyday common sense observations.

Being that I'm on your blog. It's like a skeptic at one of those barbecues.

The overall point is implicit but almost as bright as a neon sign.

---

Now that's my reasoning. I don't think I distorted your (as in pboy the man's) opinions at all. But if you would like me to go off this post alone then I would say, "Yes, I've been thirsty before."

As per the questions at the end of the post, except for the 'job' one, all the rest seem to lead to...'mind model of reality' and 'determinism' being absolutely so.

pboyfloyd said...

"As per the questions at the end of the post, except for the 'job' one, all the rest seem to lead to...'mind model of reality' and 'determinism' being absolutely so."

And since we can be sure of the pastor in your story's script, we can be sure of my script?

Seems like you're taking both sides of the argument here and leaving me none at all!!

You seem to be saying that it's ridiculous to say that people run off scripts because it is SO obvious that this comment is much like that pastor's chicken, simply offering a lead in to his script!

Instead of me, observing how scripted my life with Emma is, and noting how that is consistent with myself, I, apparently am offering some bait 'designed' to 'trot us along' to my previous conclusions?

Once again, I feel that you're doing an 'end-run' around my comment.

Let's imagine a debate entitled, "Is there a God?", and the con side makes several points. I don't think it would be fair of the pro side to ask you to disregard anything the con side says because, of course that's what the con side WOULD say!

Seems to me that that would be avoiding the debate entirely, trying to 'win' the debate by skipping to the end and declaring, "Everything that guy said is bullshit designed to agree with his position!", which gives the illusion of having 'taken the legs out' from the con's position.

Your 'chicken dinner' analogy fails, I think, because the pastor's 'conclusions' don't depend on whether the 'chicken dinner' is delicious(a 'good' point) or not.

Anonymous said...

"You seem to be saying that it's ridiculous to say that people run off scripts because it is SO obvious that this comment is much like that pastor's chicken, simply offering a lead in to his script!"

In the main I'm not saying anything about 'scripts' at all.

Except at the end, where I agree with your hypothesis but only through my metaphor, because I disagree with where your reasoning will take the idea of 'scripts.'

Just as a skeptic would disagree with where the preacher's sermon will take the idea of thirst.

First comes an example, then "the" definition, then comes an ambiguity, then comes "the" declaration/re-definition.

In fact you can take my above response to you as one type of beginning for 'scripts' if you want.

---

But let's break it down even further, because I would rather harbor doubt than set to sea assertions that will only drift then sink.

Do you believe that the 'scripts' you are writing about are correlated with your idea/s of determinism?

pboyfloyd said...

I don't know oneblood, I just make stuff up as I go along.

I did get something out of this though. that Pliny's AI is, apparently, not based on scripts.

Seems to me that science is based on scripts of a sort, they don't have to re-invent the wheel.

Also philosophy tends to rely solely on scripts, the same 'enigmatic philospher' script that you appear to be emulating now.

You seem to be saying 'something' about this comment/or not and seem to be willing to sort of negotiate what you are saying as you go along, like a juggler with your point being 'there' in your right hand, but no, that one's in the air and there's another point in the hand, but no, now that one's in the air and there's a third ball in that hand, oh, you mean THAT point, but see, it's gone again!

So, you disagree, it seems, but about what? Where my comment might lead?

You seem to be disagreeing that you ARE doing an end-run around this comment.

I hate to throw yet another 'ball' for you to juggle but I can live with it.

Are you willing to admit that 'yer-average-Joe', who puts no thought into what they are doing or why, totally running off the scripts-du-jour has, in fact, invoked no free-will, whether it exists or not, in his life?

Anonymous said...

Yes. I do agree with that. I thought I said as much.

The reasons for the qualification of my agreement I think are justified. But then again I would (think they are justified)...not much of an argument there.

I have answered your question as directly as I can.

Will you answer mine?

"I don't know oneblood, I just make stuff up as I go along."

I can't/won't accept that as a 'legitimate' answer because you would be going against your own theory by sticking by the above.

Anonymous said...

Unless, of course, just making stuff up as you go along is part of your 'script.' Then I would just call your answer inadequate because the only explanation left to you is the one you keep saying I'm doing a run-around of 'scripts' in order to prove.

That of the reason I do it is because I do it.

But since that's all I'd be left with if indeed 'making stuff up as you go along' is part of your 'script,' how would I be running around anything?

Anonymous said...

En realidad pboy, dejalo. Me rindo.

pboyfloyd said...

Well, oneblood, I don't think that there are any winners or losers here.

The 'story' behind this post is that my observations about the morning scripts are just the tip of the iceberg, in that I see Emma playing the same old games with me and I feel that there is no escape from her games, except the 'hard' road, at times.


For example she started 'firing up' an argument just before the cleaning lady(who is also her niece) was about to show up.

I got the feeling that she was laying a subtle trap whereby I would be painted as "always" arguing with Emma, with June(the niece/cleaning lady) honestly able to 'back her up' in some future assertion that, yes, we 'never seemed to be getting along'.

Basically, it seemed to me that Emma was trying to paint us, to June, as never getting along, when in reality, Emma was engineering the entire thing.

Now I don't know, perhaps Emma herself doesn't know why she was doing this. Maybe she saw it on one of her soaps, but she was certainly trying to con June into thinking that we never get along and, presumably the pay-off would be telling me that we never get along, and all I had to do would be to ask June, who, given sufficient episodes of us 'not getting along every time she was here'.

The only way out of this was the 'hard way', where I challenged Emma with the facts while June WAS here, and ask Emma what she was up to.

Well, of course Emma denied playing any such game as painting me, to June, as constantly fighting with Emma, and consequently wanted to fight with me for that entire day and not just the period that June was cleaning up.

Hence this post about scripts, and roles I suppose, because I think that Emma is playing a role and trying to shoe-horn me into the 'bad-guy' role, or at least try to make me 'see' that, avoid it and end up in the role she REALLY wants me to play.

Not wanting you to think that Emma is just 'evil' here, I have to explain that Emma is chronically ill and takes mega-pills and gets shots and biweekly drips and recently has been taking that Champix quit-smoking pill which lists 'weird sadistic behaviour' as a side effect!

You're right, of course that the gist of this post agrees with my former posts, but I really think that some of you free will believers are over-reacting to any hint that free will is non-existent.

In the end, it would depend on one's definition of free will, one's definition of determinism etc.

Not sure if I agree 100% with determinists and I think it's kind of unfair of philosophers to suppose that they 'see through' you as having 'such and such' philosophy.

For example, on the 'He who shall remain nameless' old blog, some would be philosopher/apologist suddenly stopped arguing with me when I said, "I don't believe in metaphysics!" Perhaps he was stunned into 'silence' or perhaps he couldn't stop laughing, who knows?

Still, I'll end by saying that I 'get' my topics from my life, but I don't want them to seem like some long drawn bitch-fest against Emma.

Anonymous said...

'"I don't believe in metaphysics!"'

Maybe he was laughing but that really was quite clever.

Sorry to hear about Emma, and the 'scripts.' I understand what you mean.

If you "take care of her" so to speak, you must bear a lot of the resentment that comes at you from being the 'pillar.'

I'm not trying to be too cheesy, but stay strong...now you're supposed to lift your fist in the air.

Have a good night.

pboyfloyd said...

Yea, oneblood, I hear ya.

I wonder if this is typical woman's logic. We're heading for UBC hospital today for an annual thingy with a specialist today.

Emma seems to think that it would be a good idea to show up at the ferry a couple of hours early to avoid a two hour wait.

If we show up, just in time for ferry departure, you see, there's a chance that it'll be full and we'll have to wait two solid hours for the next one. BUT, if we arrive two hours EARLY, we can avoid THAT wait.

pboyfloyd said...

Oh, that wasn't clear. The appointment is for tomorrow, so it doesn't matter what time we show up in Vancouver today, it's a sleep-over.

Plus, she's got a nasty habit of foreshadowing everything that can be foreshadowed.

OOOOO... we better start hurrying NOW, there's only two hours before we leave to be at the ferry parking lot, to be two hours early to avoid that two hour wait.

Apparently she picks a 'magic' number(2 hours, in this case), and we ought to be panicking at multiples of that number)

Pointing this out to her just makes her angry. LOL She even forshadows her breakfast cereal. "I'm gonna want Rice Krispies soon!" Foreshadowing music.

I can handle these things no problem. She can't help being her, and it's kinda cute, once one realises that it's her adorable way of micromanaging a situation so that she feels in complete charge and control of it and hey, as a bonus she can watch me running around like a chicken with my head cut off for no 'real' reason.

(once again, "Not bitching, I'm not bitchin!")

pboyfloyd said...

Here's a completely different 'one'.(This happened a few times.)

Emma: I'm starving, is there nothing good to eat in this HOUSE!??

Me: Indeed there is my sweetheart, I have (insert one of Emma's favourite meals that we haven't had for quite a while, here) and that can be ready in, (let's say) 45 minutes! Would you like me to start cooking it now?

Emma: No, you know, I'm not really hungry yet.

Me: (sparkle, bzzmpft, chacka-chacka ((my brain short-circuiting))) Okay, just let me know when you're ready! (to myself) I need a drink!

Harvey said...

PBoy:

What I am about to say is based upon experience with a sister, a daughter, two wives, two mothers-in-law (both of whom I came to love and respect dearly!!), a daughter-in-law, and assorted other women I have known well enough and long enough to have formed an opinion.

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus!! (obviously plagiarized) As it happens, this book title hits things squarely on the head. It recognizes that there are distinct and fairly consistant mental mechanisms that have evolved within each of the two genders which largely seem to determine how we deal with various interpersonal relationships and, especially, when we are unhappy or under stress. In fact, this supports your suggestion that we frequently (?always?) operate from "scripts". I have already said that I think this is due to the need to deal with day to day and frequently encountered issues without having to "start from scratch" every time they come up, thus leaving more "cpu time" for less frequently encountered problem solving.
All of what you relate fits into and supports this paradigm. Even though the women from my personal experience as cited above are otherwise disparate in age, socioeconomic background, education, profession (or lack thereof), childbearing status, etc, etc., the one thing they all have in common (being female) has resulted in very similar responses and "script" choices. Once I was able (after long years and many setbacks) to understand this and eventually was able to get past my own "scripts" and gender biases in response to their behaviors, my life became much more tranquil and, so I am told by these women, made me a "better" father, husband, son-in-law, etc. The real payoff for me has been that I have not only recognized these"scripts" for what they are, but have managed not to let them get in the way of otherwise loving and/or mutually beneficial relationships.
I try to remeber always : "It just DOES!!"

mac said...

What one needs to understand, is females are a different species than we are. Oh sure, they look like us, but they are different on a fundamental level....I think the proper terminology is "woman".

pboyfloyd said...

Thanks for your words of encouragement and support guys.

Poor woman got some bad news. Her specialist, who was doing research on her condition, basically told her that he has given up. Just hope he isn't cutting off any meds which are slowing down it's progress.(I'm sure he knows what he's doing.)