Do you ever play out every possible scenario in your head before the scenario happens?

There is no way to ponder out every possibility – they are infinite…just like with hypotheses when using the scientific method – eventually you just have to settle on a couple of most likely options and go from there.

Like @Simone_De_Beauvoir said, there is no way to think about every possibility.But when I’m thinking about something big, I do find myself thinking about the different “paths” that I could take while I do dishes or try to get to sleep. This doesn’t help to get to sleep, but it happens.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I agree that they are infinite, but do they add to the collective?!? We can never reach the infinite possibilities of course, but the more we are able to learn, collect, and adapt, then the more information we have, and thus, the more equipped we are to narrow down to those most likely options, yes?!?

There’s an aspect of my work that involves designing custom equipment for people with disabilities, and there, yes, I try to foresee every eventuality because some little glitch that I didn’t think of can end up making my solution useless, or even cause injury.

But in my personal life, it’s very different. I hardly ever try to anticipate how things will unfold (unless there’s serious potential for disaster). Life seems fresher and freer when I’m just winging it. But then, I married someone who’s the polar opposite in this regard. She maps out all the outcomes for even piddlin’ little things, because she can’t stand being blind-sided. And I have to admit that this has saved my butt on more than one occasion. But living this way takes a big toll on her; because the unforeseen still happens (as it must), she ‘s all the more frustrated by it and blames herself for being caught off guard. And she has a hard time being fully present because her head’s usually somewhere in the future.

@Holden_Caulfield for some people, yes – others are indecisive and having too many options can give them anxiety and not lead to anything but worry.

Very difficult to do, but in the Army we definitely tried! : )

as a philosophical answer, yeah, the infinite hypotheses @Simone_De_Beauvoir mentioned are the way it is, think of the infinite universe where every possibility is being generated at any given moment but you are only aware of “this” one.

practically you’re more likely to start from the outside with a large “bubble” of possibilities and work down to a small pool of “likely” outcomes, when needing quick answers. 1+1, well you know it’s 2 not bluejay and it doesn’t take you long to come up with the answer because brain is able to do this with great efficiency in some instances. and yes you do learn from your mistakes as evidenced by how quickly you come up with the right answer.

when considering a protracted course of action on the other hand many times you start with limited information and have to hypothesize against potential variables that may come into play. scientific method attempts to simplify the question and limit situations to as few variables as possible, if your hypothesized conclusion turns out to be incorrect you go back and do a failure analysis to determined what happened and what you didn’t account for. this data does add to the collective as evidenced by the speed with which you are able to narrow down the variables the next time around.

in life of course you can’t count out all the variables so you cheat and weight them as to how likely you think they are to happen. if I run a red light a consequence might be a plane crashing into me, but i weight that much less likely than being T’d up by the cross traffic, so I decide to not run the red light, not bc the plane might kill me but bc the other cars might even though both are possible.

so, can you “know it all”? nope, but you can reasonably consider likely outcomes based on your knowledge and make an educated guess, even if you only take a second to do it. And next time, assuming there is one, you’ll be better equipped to predict the outcome because of what you’ve learned since your last go-round.

I think I’m @Harp ‘s wife – not really, but I recognize the personality traits. I wouldn’t say I play out every scenario, but I do spend a lot of time up in my head pondering the past and the future. When I am going to teach, I over prepare which paradoxically allows me to be more spontaneous because I know I always have a fallback plan if I mess up.

No I dont, but I usuallly try to think about all the possible outcomes that could happen when I try to do stuff…That usually keeps me out of trouble.

I certainly tried to. Apparently that’s what made the Army consider me to be a decent officer. Now, things just happen and I either react or not. Mostly not.

Yes, and it happens to be one of my neuroses, or at least something that causes me some anxiety. I actually wish I wasn’t so adept at seeing every angle of a situation because it often prevents me from acting, as I get afraid of the worst possible outcome.

I used to do this on watch on the ship. In fact, we were trained to do just that in order to best prepare ourselves for each situation.