Decision Tree

Discrete Regretroactology is the study of finite sequences of decisions and their effects on the appearances of stick figures involved in them. For example, here is a depth-4 binary tree exploring a decision M:
BinaryTree-Faces-w=800

There is a certain logical symmetry to the end states of this tree, most noticeable at the outer (edge) branches; for example, compare {shouldn’t-couldn’t-wouldn’t-did} with {should-could-would-didn’t}.  We should note, however, that certain qualities of the stick figure itself (ignorance, eccentricity, pusillanimity, perversity, &c.) may conspire to create a kind of visual turbulence in the outcomes that simultaneously confounds theoretical predictions AND makes the story more interesting….

Published by Marek

Cartoonist, musician, teacher.

Join the Conversation

2 Comments

Leave a comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: