Estimation

The word estimation contains only 10 characters. However, gazillion algorithms have been developed for the purpose of it... in statistics, for instance, under-estimation and over estimation are two of the known problems I heard repeatedly in lectures.

I had always thought that I am a tough grader... based on an estimation I cooked up in my creative head about the grading pattern of the other evaluators.

Yet, after I was evaluating three papers for a conference today, I accidentally clicked on the link that allowed me to see the review of other reviewers, too.

It was not until then did I realize that--- if there three types of judges, namely, tough, soft and medium, I am actually in no way close to be a tough grader and I might actually be considered as a soft grader despite my belief that I am tough on giving scores (at least in this context). In the future, I might need to shift the grades I assign a bit to the left as the correction mechanism while making sure I am not over doing it.

I guess, in life, there are so many a time when it is inevitable for us to make estimations. Take me for instance, I am in constant process of estimating the state of my mental health condition (although much of times, the process has turned pretty much automatic for me) and the progress of my physical recovery. It could be also general like the estimation you have to make about whether it is going to rain later given the fact that it is overcast and the humidity seems to be fairly high.

Sometimes the estimates might be relatively correct while, other times, estimates might be fairly wrong. Some estimations are of more severe consequences and others less while it is still dependent on your perspective to decide what the concept of severity entails.

Like the estimates about my mental state and how much longer I could endure the symptoms without upper the dosage right before I went into the cuckoo's nest (despite the fact that I did realize then the error of my estimation might be really huge.)-- I would say the severity of consequences is sort of in the middle range.

Regarding the severity of the consequences for the estimates you make about whether it will rain or not, it would be fairly much dependent on whether the pouring rain resulted in the water damage to your laptop or only got you sort of wet.

It, then, occurred to me that...

I was both luckily and unfortunately able to find evidence to see how off my estimates could be. If I have had realized the consequences of certain scenarios, I might have performed self-corrections at an earlier stage of events.

Yet, I guess, sometimes, the process of self-correction gets delayed because we either do not realize all is but a process of estimation we are engaging in or we might just be unaware of or forget the severity perspective of consequences.

The question to ask would be... how could we prevent the delay? Or, do we just have to wait for the time to come for the process to be launched?

Such marks the thoughts I have about "estimation".