Mathematical precision/perfection

[G-Max]

Am I the only person here who is annoyed by the fact that pi is some ******** number instead of being exactly 3?

I'm serious. Although I doubt that I have asperger's, I do have some obsessive-perfectionist traits, revolving in particular around mathematical precision and "correctness". To give you an example, Master of Orion II calculates planetary population by the millions for some purposes, like population cap, and by the thousands for certain other purposes, like population growth. This means that planets will "cap out" at really really weird population numbers. A planet with a maximum population of 12 million, for example, (these are apparently very small planets) will end up at some completely ******** number like 12,194k or 12,316k. This drives me crazy, so I often end up putting my colonies through periods of artificial starvation (which always occurs in increments of -50k) and growth in an attempt to get them to cap off at precisely 12,000k or 18,000k or whatever the maximum "should be". A similar phenomenon happened when I made the jump from Diablo to Diablo II. In Diablo, a player's stats had specific caps depending on character class. A rogue, for example, will cap out at 55 strength, 250 dexterity, 80 vitality, and 70 magic, and it was possible to reach the cap on all of these stats and have a "perfect" character if you duped enough elixirs. I was happy with this. In Diablo II, however, these caps were removed, which made "perfect" characters impossible. This drove me CRAZY! Ultimately, I settled on allocating stat points according to their starting ratios (so if I was playing a Sorc, I'd wait until I had 16 stat points built up, and then I'd put 2 in Strength, 2 in Vitality, 5 in Dexterity, and 7 in Energy). Also, when I played the original Diablo, I explored every nook and cranny of each level before moving on to the next and I picked up every. single. item. and took them back to town and sold them, because I'm incapable of letting anything go to waste. The "I must carry this two-cent item back to town and sell it" mentality really proved counterproductive when I got into World of Warcraft, where I'm still having trouble grappling with the fact that monsters are a renewable resource but my time is not. Speaking of World of Warcraft, the "achievements and statistics" tab is the worst thing to ever happen to that game. Yeah, I really want a permanent record of how many times I've died and how many fish I've caught and all that stuff, that won't send me into an OCD rage at all

 

[King_Oni]

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm not annoyed that Pi is not exactly 3 but 3.14 somethingsomething. I think I like these decimal increments more for some reason. Absolute values just seem so... they come across as "set in stone" too much. But that's just my opinion.

As for the latter about the achievements and such and being a perfectionist. For a while I was like that. Then I realized I don't have infinite time and moved on. It's a practical matter above anything else. I can't even start about all the games on Steam that don't have a perfect 100% complete rating for me (in fact, there are only 2 out of 100 somewhat, in my library). What you can wonder is, if all these achievements are created with some "sense" in mind of the developers. One such game; Universe Sandbox has an achievement that requires you to run the game for 8760 hours (a full year)... while it's nice to have achievements, some just don't make sense. And that's where I realized some things you just have to let go

 

[G-Max]

I actually don't mind the achievements, it's the statistics that bug me. Also, I'm annoyed by the fact that the game records the exact date when I got an achievement.

 

[Turnip]

Pythagoras was pretty upset with irrational numbers

 

[King_Oni]

I actually don't mind the achievements, it's the statistics that bug me. Also, I'm annoyed by the fact that the game records the exact date when I got an achievement.

I wasn't neccesarily addressing the achievements such as the icon you get on steam or the gamerpoints. But the percentage of completion is very much a statistic.

Why does it bother you there's a date to it?

 

[G-Max]

Why does it bother you there's a date to it?

It's a permanent marker that I didn't get the achievement until a certain date. I can never change that date. By contrast, an achievement that I don't have yet is something that I can easily change.

 

[Turnip]

It's a permanent marker that I didn't get the achievement until a certain date. I can never change that date. By contrast, an achievement that I don't have yet is something that I can easily change.

This doesn't make sense to me; for one thing you can't get an achievement that you don't have any earlier than the present, so an achievement you don't have kind of has the current date associated with it.

 

[Ereth]

Honestly, this is an issue of perception. The timestamp only means something negative because that's how you view it. It's like the old example of a glass of water. (Is it half full or half empty?)

 

[G-Max]

This doesn't make sense to me; for one thing you can't get an achievement that you don't have any earlier than the present, so an achievement you don't have kind of has the current date associated with it.

But that's only temporary, so it doesn't matter... or as Edison would say, "I haven't failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work"

Honestly, this is an issue of perception. The timestamp only means something negative because that's how you view it. It's like the old example of a glass of water. (Is it half full or half empty?)

Let me rephrase. When the achieves aren't timestamped, perfection is possible. When they are, it's impossible. The date information exists, but no date is more "correct" than any other.

 

[Ereth]

You're reinforcing my point---the very idea of perfection is subjective. It doesn't seem worth it to me to be stressed out about when an achievement is obtained.

 

[142857]

You're reinforcing my point---the very idea of perfection is subjective. It doesn't seem worth it to me to be stressed out about when an achievement is obtained.

That is partly why they call OCD a disorder. Because it involves getting stressed out about things like this that are not worth getting stressed out about.

I love Pi because it is the same throughout the universe and it refuses to be some tidy little number.

 

[King_Oni]

That is partly why they call OCD a disorder. Because it involves getting stressed out about things like this that are not worth getting stressed out about.

But who decides what's worth stressing out about?

 

[IContainMultitudes]

I'm not really a math person, but I do find Pi to be an interesting concept for reasons similar to those mentioned by 142857. This is another mathematical concept that I'm interested in, largely because you can see fibonacci spirals pretty much everywhere in nature:

Fibonacci number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[142857]

But who decides what's worth stressing out about?

Take the example of my friend.

He is incredibly disorganised and untidy. Not dirty, just untidy. Inside his house (where he lives alone) there is useless "stuff" piled anything up to a couple of feet deep in every room and on every table and surface. Because of executive dysfunction he can barely even get started on cleaning it up. This doesn't seem to worry him, even though it should (as a fire hazard, a health hazard, and in terms of the way it impacts his quality of life). But he gets really stressed out if his tiny (about 60cm/2 feet high) front gate is half open. It has to be fully open or fully closed, he gets visibly stressed if one side is open and one side is closed for whatever reason. There is also a sliding "post" used to keep it in the closed position, and this has to be turned a certain way or he gets stressed out. The gate being half open has no negative impacts on him or anyone else, but he gets stressed out about it. That, to me, is OCD.