Author Philip Pullman repeatedly refers to “phase space” in his essay collection, Daemon Voices. He admits that he is not a scientist but instead enjoys interpreting scientific ideas for the metaphors they provide. “Phase space,” he explains, “is a term from dynamics, and it refers to the profound complexity of changing systems. It’s the notional space that contains not just the actual consequences of the present moment, but all the possible consequences. The phase space of a game of noughts and crosses, for instance, would contain every possible outcome of every possible initial move, and the actual course of a game could be represented by a path starting from the one move that was actually made—a path winding past numbers of choices not made.” Pullman admits that his grasp on the science of dynamics is not really the point, but rather his interpretation of this concept as he can apply it to writing. He explains, “I am surely not the only writer who has the distinct sense that every sentence I write is surrounded by the ghosts of the sentences I could have written at that point, but chose not to.”

So phase space, as I understand Pullman’s use of the term, is the available possibilities present at a specific point of time and space. Each action or decision, which takes place at that specific point of time and space, creates a new phase space.

Whether my understanding of phase space is scientifically accurate is also not actually the point of this meditation; I am instead using my understanding of Pullman’s interpretation of phase space as an inspiration to explore decision making and criticism. While writing, I specifically avoided researching philosophy or psychology or the social sciences because otherwise, I would get lost in other people’s thoughts. I wanted, in writing this meditation, to find my way through my own thoughts and insights. My purpose was self-exploration.

Decision Points

A decision point is any moment in our lives when we, as decision-makers, confront the phase space of available choices and select one. Our lives as humans are a sequence of decision points experienced chronologically through time, each of which has its own phase space representing the totality of possible choices. We all face decision points constantly; any action is, at its essence, a decision selected from the available choices of a decision point.

Decision points that make major or dramatic differences in our lives tend to be memorable, while decision points that do not make noticeable or recognizable differences in our lives tend to be forgettable.

A decision is the choice selected from the phase space of any decision point. Once chosen, a decision will have an outcome or result, and in this way, we move forward through time and the universe.

Range of Influence of Outcomes

The outcome of any decision point has a range of influence that is directly related to the decision maker’s authority and power to affect others. The range of influence can be imagined as a continuum bounded on one end by decisions that affect only the decision maker and on the opposite end by decisions that affect others with minimal effects on the decision maker. For the purposes of illustration, I’ll explain three examples from this continuum to provide an overview of the range of influence on the decision maker and the universe.

At the most basic level, a decision has a personal outcome that will affect the decision maker as when I decide whether to dry my hair or my face first after showering, or whether I choose to eat my dessert before my main course. It’s difficult to imagine how the outcome of this decision will impact anyone other than me. On the continuum of range of influence, this type of decision can be imagined as one end or side, completely personal and without any global impact that extends to others.

More frequently, we are aware that decisions have a greater range of influence, as when I am driving my family. My choice to stop at a stop sign will impact not only me, but also those who are riding with me, and also those who, through a convergence of decision points, find themselves crossing my path. Similarly, my choice of route will affect those of us traveling together, those whom we may be meeting when we arrive, as well as anyone whose route we cross while traveling to our destination. On the continuum of range of influence, this decision type can be imagined somewhere in the middle. Sometimes these decisions only impact a small number of people as when I decide what to cook for dinner, and the beneficiaries of this decision are my family who may find themselves lucky or unlucky depending on my choice. Other times these decisions impact a wider web of people as the example above with the car and the stop sign shows.

If a personal decision impacts the decision maker and no one else, and decision with greater range of influence affects the decision maker and those individuals whom he or she comes into contact with, then a decision with the greatest range of influence is possible when the decision-maker is in a position of authority and the outcome of the decision impacts others. A teacher’s decision will have outcomes that impact students and their families; a manager’s decision will have outcomes that impact his subordinates, his customers, and his industry; a local government official’s decision will have outcomes that impact residents of the community, or organizations, or businesses; a leader on the world stage will face decisions that impact countries, generations, and even history. In each of these cases, the actual impact or effect on the decision-maker may not be as significant as it is on others, especially those who are under that decision-maker’s control or influence. A general who decides which troops to send into battle may not be killed as a consequence of his decision. While he may experience guilt for the rest of his life about that decision as a consequence of it, he does at least still get to make decisions, which is more than can be said for the soldiers who died following his orders.

Agency and Mental Well-being

As we each move through our lives and face decision points and make choices with outcomes, we are all of us constantly being impacted by the outcomes of our own decisions while navigating the outcomes of decisions that are made by others which affect our lives. None of us lives in a vacuum, and the result of this is that we may feel varying amounts of control over our destinies. When I face decision points and make decisions and experience favorable outcomes, I may feel that I am in control of the universe. When I’m buffeted or pushed or impeded by the decisions of others, and I experience unfavorable outcomes that are outside my control, I feel powerless and frustrated. “Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you,” is one saying that captures this dynamic of power/powerlessness, and also, “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.”

This feature of control is what many writers and speakers mean when they use the word “agency.”

It would be misguided to claim each of us seeks his or her own agency in every aspect of life, but I do think it’s reasonable to conclude that every one needs to feel agency over at least some aspect of his or her life. We eschew political decision making through a system of delegation which gives us the ability to focus our time and energy on personal goals like our family or our friends or our professions. Within those groups, we may have more authority than in others, so in my family I may collaborate with my wife to make decisions that affect our family, but at work, I am am a subordinate impacted by the policies of legislators, or decisions of a school board, or a instructions of a superintendent or principal, and simultaneously, I am a teacher with authority to make decisions that impact my classes and students.

This complex interplay between different roles we inhabit as individuals within society makes it impossible to have any clear idea of our personal agency. There’s no score we can assign. I can’t tell you, “Today my agency is 59. Last week, before the curriculum director rolled out the new writing program, it was 83.” 

You can’t tell me, “Now that I’ve ordered new curtains for the living room, my agency score is actually up to 71.”

Instead, our self-assessed feeling of agency is interpreted through whatever lens we happen to be using as the focus of our attention. Two people could share the exact same circumstances and each have different interpretations of their own agency because one may focus entirely on the control he feels while at work while the other may focus entirely on the lack of control he feels in his personal life. This extends to our perspectives of other people. In many cases, when we envy the lives of other people, what we are envying is our perception of their agency. Our perceptions of others’ agency is unlikely to match their own, however, and so most of us will see a person with money or fame and we will imagine be attracted to the agency we perceive in that person’s life. “If I had so-and-so’s money, I wouldn’t have to worry about rent. I could drive a big car. I could have a home theater in my basement.” We would focus on all of the things that seem important to us in our current lives and how the agency perceived in this other life would support our current wants and needs. Ironically, and short-sightedly, although we would envy all of our perceived advantages from being this famous person, we will ignore those areas of low agency that we may not have the imagination to perceive, like binding contracts that keep an actor from working with a different studio, or the pressure of composing a 100,000 word novel within a deadline, or the grueling travel involved in performing onstage across the country and around the world. So often we look only at the agency that we perceive a person has, and we see it manifest in wealth or that alluring abstraction we term “fame.” Then we wake to the news that Robin Williams or Chris Cornell committed suicide last night, and we shake our heads like the singer in Paul Simon’s lyrics to Richard Corey: “Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he’s got” (https://www.paulsimon.com/song/richard-cory/).

Intentions and Decision Making

The verb intend has associations with purpose, anticipation, and expectation. When I intend to take the train to your house for a weekend trip, you and I may both understand that I should be arriving at 5:30 p.m. on Friday evening. If you arrive at the station to pick me up and discover that I am not on the train, you would conclude that things did not go the way I intended. Interestingly, the verb “unintend” is not a word. The English language has never accommodated a verb form for unintend because the nature of intention is purpose, and the opposite of purpose is non-purpose, so the idea of a subject performing an un-action is both oxymoronic and ungrammatical. You, looking for me at the station, will not think, “Andy unintended to be on that train,” as a consequence for my absence on the train. You instead will think, “Andy intended to be on the train but is not. Something must have happened.”

Purpose, anticipation, and expectation: intention. We predict, we estimate, we imagine, we look forward to the outcomes of our decisions because we can’t actually know what the outcome will be until after the decision is made, after the die has been cast, after the domino of our choice has been tipped and other dominoes begin to fall in predictable and, as we often discover, unexpected ways.

Our experiences with intentions have taught us that intentions never guarantee an outcome, and yet we continue to use intentions as an anticipatory heuristic for decision making. Intentions themselves are not consistent from person to person or even from decision point to decision point. Some intentions may be vague and imprecise, that is broadly positive or negative; alternately, intentions may be meticulously detailed conceptions imagined down to the tiniest nut and bolt. 

We may even experience reactions to any outcomes based on how closely the outcome matches our intentions. If I intend to say something to you that is positive and complimentary, and you, upon hearing my comment, react in any way outside of my expectation, I will experience confusion or frustration or disappointment.

The truth about intentions, however, is that as much as they are an anticipatory heuristic for decision making, they are also not a requirement in decision making. A decision can be made without an intention, or without a clear intention; an intention can be different inside a person’s brain than the intention that he or she admits; a person could even deceive him or herself about the nature of their intentions, imagining a more noble intention than the underlying motivation. In life, we face may decision points where we should do the “right” thing, but there is some alternate choice that would actually be more gratifying to us, and it’s frequently difficult for us to face a decision point without going through some sort of mental accounting to justify the gratifying choice and discount the “right” choice. 

Intentions as Ex Post Facto Rationalization

In many cases, I find myself clinging to my intentions when I make a choice that has a sub-optimal outcome. Doing so serves as a defense and a justification, but it doesn’t change the sub-optimal result of the decision. It is important to recognize the actual value of my intentions: intentions are part of the predictive, anticipatory process of decision making, but they are not some secret sauce in the formula of decision making that makes everything all right, especially a sub-optimal outcome. While we may tell ourselves that intentions matter, the truth is, an outcome is not the consequence of an intention; an outcome is the result of a decision. It may be anticipated, it may be unanticipated, and the more complex the decision, the more likely the decision will have unanticipated consequences. This is the nature of decision making in a complex world, and rather than acknowledging the unlikelihood of accurately anticipating outcomes, we instead try to find ex post facto rationalizations like intentions to defend our decision making. Since I intended to be on the train, my friend shouldn’t be so upset when I’m not. Since I intended to pay you back, you shouldn’t be so upset when I need more time. Since I intended to be faithful, you shouldn’t be so disappointed when I stray.  “I never meant,” we say when a decision goes wrong. Think of the accident that happens when I don’t stop at a stop sign: “I never meant to crash into you,” or “I should have stopped at the stop sign.” My intention was to cross the intersection unimpeded, but I failed to consider the possibility or I failed to accurately assess the probability that another vehicle would be entering the same space as me at the same time. “I never meant to kill anyone” doesn’t change the outcome that a person is dead.

Anticipation Versus Actual Outcomes as a Factor in Making Choices

When making a decision, that is, facing a particular decision point and selecting from the available phase space choices, a decision maker anticipates that every available choice will have an outcome associated with it. Any anticipated outcome is a prediction only. In our lives, we move through decision points making decisions that have anticipated outcomes, and the percentage of time that our anticipated outcomes match the actual outcomes is frequent enough that we use prediction as a tool for selecting choices at any decision point. However, with enough frequency, our anticipated outcomes do not match our actual outcomes that all of us recognize that anticipation is never a guarantee for outcome.

Standing on the diving board, I make a choice to dive head-first into the water. This decision does not mean I will actually succeed in performing the anticipated dive. I may bounce in preparation for making the dive and find myself catapulted into the water, pushed by my friend who pre-empted my forward motion. Or the diving board may not be nearly as springy as I anticipated, and my rotation may be off so that, when hitting the water, I belly flop. Or the amount of force that I used to jump may have exceeded the rotation necessary to align my body at a ninety-degree angle to the water, so my lower body continues rotating past my point of entry, creating a splash. I may bend my knees during the dive, unconsciously and unintentionally ruining the form I imagined when making my decision. 

Between decision and outcome, at least three possible variables may alter the outcome:

First, the decision maker himself may make an error in anticipation. Examining the available decision points, looking for anticipated outcomes, the decision maker may lack the knowledge to accurately interpret the consequence of his choice, or the decision maker may draw erroneous conclusions about the outcome of a specific choice. Later, the decision maker could say, “Oh, duh, I knew that,” but at that moment of decision, a misapprehension resulted in an outcome that did not match his anticipation. We see this when a child makes a decision based on a misapprehension. A child may recognize that when he closes his eyes, he doesn’t see others. As he doesn’t see others, he may conclude that others likewise don’t see him when his eyes are closed. When the toddler has to go to the bathroom, he faces a decision point about what he should do. One choice from the available phase space choices, would be to tell Mommy and get Mommy’s help to go to the bathroom. Another would be to go to the bathroom and attempt to use the toilet on his own. Another choice would be to close his eyes and disappear so Mommy won’t see him go to the bathroom in his pants. The child makes a decision, closes his eyes, goes to the bathroom, and inevitably pays the price for his misapprehension.

Second, outcomes from other decision maker’s decisions may pre-empt the outcome of the decision maker’s decision or alter it in some unanticipated way. In the diving example above, the friend’s decision to push the diving decision maker alters the dive which, although anticipated, never actually occurs. At least, at that particular decision point.

Third, the external world includes variables that are outside the ability for any decision maker to apprehend. For example, if it were possible to anticipate being struck by lightning, no one would be struck by lightning (or perhaps a very few self-destructive individuals would, upon recognizing that lightning was about to blast them, make the choice to leave this world, but they aren’t the norm.), but every year people are killed by lightning strikes. Certainly none of these people faced a decision point and predicted that the best possible outcome available from the choices in that particular phase space would be death by lightning strike. The universe got in the way, making its implacable, inevitable, inarguable presence felt.

Fourth, there may be other variables I haven’t recognized that may alter, disrupt, or impact the outcome of a decision.

Decision-making and Criticism

Naturally, decisions which result in optimal outcomes do not attract the same level of attention that decisions which result in sub-optimal outcomes do. Metaphorically, on the road of life, we notice the pot holes and speed bumps because they disrupt our forward motion, but we don’t pay attention to the smooth, unblemished surfaces that give us access to the future. 

As a consequence of this feature of optimal vs. sub-optimal outcomes, we seldom, if ever, reflect on the preferable alternatives to an outcome that is perceived as optimal, but we are likely to do so with with a sub-optimal outcome — both our own and the decisions of others. So our response to an outcome that is optimal may be to recognize it with a compliment or reinforce it with an acknowledgement, but our response to an outcome that is sub-optimal will typically involve analyzing the choice, its outcome, assigning a value to that outcome, and speculating about alternate outcomes that are perceived as preferable. For the purpose of this explanation, I will call this analysis of sub-optimal outcomes “criticism.”

The word “should” is a helping or auxiliary verb that implies a potential outcome: I should make chicken for dinner (implies that the act of making chicken will be preferable to the alternatives); I should run in the 5k (implies that ideally, I would participate in this 5k race at some future point when it happens); I should be happy (implies that I am not currently happy despite conditions that are ideal for me to feel happiness).

The word “should” helps us, as thinkers, draw upon past decision points to anticipate future decision points and the potential outcomes for each.

When “have” is added to “should,” the verb tense shifts to the perfect tense which takes the action of the sentence into the science fiction world of alternate universes, positing a moment in the past where a different chronology happened. Juxtaposed with “should,” this sentence suddenly becomes a criticism: “I should have made chicken for dinner” (acknowledges that #1, dinner was made, #2, chicken was not made, and recognizes #3, the dinner that was made was, in comparison to chicken, less preferable); or, “I should have run in the 5k” (acknowledges that #1, a 5k was held, #2, I did not run in it, and recognizes that #3, running in the 5k would have been preferable to not running in it); or, “I should have been happy” (acknowledges that #1, in the past, my emotional state was not one of happiness, #2, that state of unhappiness was retrospectively erroneous and should have been one of happiness).

It is always possible to look at the outcome of a decision point and reflect on the phase space options that may have resulted in an alternate outcome. This is the heuristic we use every day to explore how our choices lead to consequences and how to move from choices that result in sub-optimal outcomes to choices that result in optimal outcomes. I touch a hot pan, it hurts. “Don’t do that,” Mom says. I touch a hot plate, it hurts. “I should avoid hot things,” I realize. I reach for a hot pan, remember what Mom told me, remember what happened when I touched the hot plate, revise my actions accordingly and use a pot holder to protect my hand from the hot pan. This is how we build wisdom. Wisdom is forward thinking; criticism is backward thinking.

Criticism may be internal or it may be external. While both offer opportunities to build wisdom, both also have the potential to negatively impact decision-making.

We often think of a conscience as that inner voice that steers us toward good decisions, or we imagine an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, arguing back and forth about what should be done while we, the decision-maker, weigh the arguments and finally act. When we perceive our inner critic as useful, we benefit from internal criticism. But when we experience a defect in our inner criticism, we experience negative consequences. A lack of inner criticism results in impulsivity, compulsivity, a lack of awareness of consequence. On the other end of the spectrum, an inner critic that is overly demanding leaves us stuck in a loop of self-doubt. As a consequence, individuals with overbearing internal critics find themselves paralyzed with uncertainty, indecisive, and unable to act. They are ridden with anxiety.

External criticism is the force that normalizes behaviors. External criticism is essential for building cultures and societies with shared values. Only through external criticism can the individual learn what is expected of him or her, what counts as approved behavior and what counts as condemned behavior. Left to ourselves in isolation, we would not understand the value of truth or the problem with harming others. But as our experiences take place in a shared place, we must ceaselessly interact with other entities. From all of this information, we must also learn what to accept and what to reject, because much of the input we receive from external sources is inconsistent and contradictory. 

As with internal criticism, too little or too much external criticism has consequences. Without external criticism, the individual will not be able to operate socially, a perpetual outcast. With too much external criticism, the individual will shut down or could react violently.

The interaction of both internal and external criticism on the individual has far-reaching mental health consequences, the breadth of which is beyond the scope of this limited rumination.

The Use of Phase Space for Criticism

Imagine that moment when an external critic tells you, “You should have done such-and-such.” 

At the decision point when you did something other than such-and-such, the phase space possibilities included all possible choices, but you, as decision maker, were only able to select one. If the available choices of a specific phase space aren’t infinite, then the number is at least mind-bogglingly vast, which we can take to mean that the critic has a mind-bogglingly vast number of alternatives available to him or her when criticizing you, while you have only the single decision along with all of its consequences to point to as your defense. But whereas you did not have benefit to the outcome at the time you made the decision — and instead only had access to the anticipated outcomes — your critic does have access to the actual outcome. 

In decisions that have great range of influence, given the vast number of choices at any decision point, it is highly improbable that every single choice any of us makes will have the optimum outcome — and that is ignoring the reality that very few of us would be likely to agree on what we would actually classify as “optimum.” On a continuum of best to worst outcomes that result from the phase space of a single decision point, we can logically conclude that there will always be an alternative choice that, in theory, would have resulted in a superior outcome.

But our critic does not, as part of his criticism, acknowledge that his own scenario could be pre-empted by unanticipated results. Instead, our critic makes use only of the perceived or anticipated outcome when making an observation about what the decision maker should have done differently.

Because time works the way it does, with the future available only to speculation and imagination while the past is available for scrutiny and review, we can always point to the past and recognize that the choice made at a specific decision point was sub-optimal among the phase space choices available to the decision maker. The consequence of this characteristic of time and decision is that all of us can always be criticized for being wrong. 

One further significant issue with criticism becomes apparent: the critic posits only an alternate, superior choice at a specific decision point, and from that starting point, the critic points only to an optimized list of consequences. At no point does the critic allow for the unintended consequences or unexpected results that are, naturally, a part of the decision making process. The critic has no way to acknowledge the vast alternative phase spaces that would have been opened up as a consequence of their cherry-picked decision, and the unintended or unexpected consequences of each.

Take for example, something as complicated a a geo-political decision involving the use of force between countries. A leader of a country with a significant range of influence makes a decision to send forces under his control into a neighboring country. Critics will point to the decision point and cite alternative choices that could have resulted in peace, the preservation of lives, or maintaining the status quo. They will point to the costs that would not have been incurred had the choice been different. They will refer only to the ideal consequences of what would have happened had the choice been different.

And all of these alternatives will have no possible rebuttal because they exist only in speculation. Arguing, “That wouldn’t have happened,” to a complete conjecture is like saying, “My speculation is better than your conjecture.”

Missing from any criticism of this decision will be two key features of any decision point: the possibility of unanticipated outcomes and the subsequent chain of phase space possibilities created through any alternate choice. In our example, by making an alternate choice, the leader may have revealed unexpected outcomes that no one, including the critic, could have foreseen. And, by declining to use force, the fearful leader will have faced other decision points with other costs and other repercussions, even other deaths. But since these consequences don’t exist and have never existed, they are never a factor in any conversation.

The advantage to the critic who points to a past decision point is that since what exists is concrete, what does not exist — the alternative referred to by the critic as a preferable alternative outcome — exists within the imagination and speculation of the critic, offering an optimized version of the consequence and presumed subsequent decision points from the vast and incomprehensible number of possible outcomes. It’s a cherry-picked alternative of speculation and since only the concrete actual decision point and its consequences exist, the alternate point can be anything that the critic chooses it to be.

It is, therefore, no great feat to criticize the decisions of another person. A critic is not, somehow, superior to the decision maker, although that is exactly what critics believe. A critic has the advantage of hindsight to make a criticism. The critic has the advantage of cherry-picking optimum alternatives while ignoring unanticipated outcomes. The critic ignores that any choice, including his preferred alternative, would have opened subsequent phase space choice possibilities with outcomes (potentially unanticipated), any one of which would have opened subsequent phase space choices with outcomes (potentially unanticipated), on and on, outcome after outcome, beyond the realms of speculation in directions beyond our comprehension.