Quantifying subjectivity using vector calculus

[Lord Garth]

As I've thought more about evaluating and understanding opinions in the ST XI forum today, I unintentionally learned a topic of vector calculus, the gradient.

Bear with me because I'm newly self-taught, with some help from Wikipedia, and this is still very rough. I thought about posting here because this forum would be a lot more conductive to feedback than ST XI where the vast majority of posters would respond with, "Say what?! "

I'm looking at the range of preferences, have quantified subjectivity, and plotted a three-dimensional slope:

• The X-axis is dense continuity that requires a breadth of understanding versus a reboot that constantly resets, as the points of extreme with everything in the middle.
• The Y-axis is feeling enthusiasm regarding the quality of stories versus disdain for likewise, again with everything in-between.
• The Z-axis is how strongly you feel about each opinion from whether or not you don't really care at all to feeling your life depends on it.

If you can figure out the coordinates for two points that relect someone's most negative and positive opinions then you can plot the range of their opinions along a three-dimensional slope.

As long as you use the gradient with a differential or derivative model then you can take a wide range of combinations from the X, Y, and Z-axes into account.

In English: You can figure map out what someone prefers and doesn't as a concept, what they think of the quality in each, and how strongly they feel about it.

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Is this sound?

 

[Ariadne]

That looks reasonable.

Quantifying things, of course, is the difficult part.

(You could also make the Z axis the number of people who hold that opinion, or the number of people multiplied by their own enthusiasm.)

 

[Bill Morris]

I would think that one factor could be an individual fan's preference for a particular era in the Trekiverse (the ships, uniforms, etc., etc), not to mention who was running the franchise at the time a series or movies was made. Every series has good stories and bad, as well as interesting characters and some relatively boring ones.

Am I making any sense here? Or is this calculus specifically geared toward what people think should be done in the future, and the upcoming movie in particular? Even then, the divide between preference for TOS era or post-NEM, for example, would seem to be a factor.

 

[Lord Garth]

LCARS 24 said:
Am I making any sense here? Or is this calculus specifically geared toward what people think should be done in the future, and the upcoming movie in particular?

Yes, that would be my focus.

I'm open to what the three dimensions should be, but I used my choices for something plug in the model I was working on to see it would work.