Quantum Ladder Theory

Ladder Theory has been bothering me lately. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, check out www.intellectualwhores.com/masterladder.html. The crux of the problem is that the theory makes sense. It logically explains a good portion of some very interesting questions. The theory provides explanations about how men and women have different outlooks when it comes to the type of relationships they can have. It also provides a theoretical breakdown of the factors that promote attraction on both the men's and women's side. It's a hard theory to deny or refute, because it is easy to see myraid examples where it seems to apply perfectly. However, there's something about it that doesnt seem quite complete. There are a few anomolies here and there, some of which the theory tries to explain (Religiosity, Loyalty etc) and few which it doesnt even touch, (The Casablanca Phenomenon, the Summer/Ana Conundrum..ill get to these) Mitch provided one possible explanation, that the ladder theory explains why people are attracted to one another and the mechanics of "ranking people" but makes no attempt to explain the actions people take based on their attraction. If you look at the various stes of explanations for why people act the way they do, you will find some common ground. It has to do with each individual's system of beliefs and values. For simplicity, let's call this Moral Compass Theory. I would define Moral Compass Theory as stating that the actions people take are based on how well they percieve the likely outcomes a a given course of action correlate with their individual beliefs, values and goals. Of course, people dont always make the "right" decision, but this can be easily explained two ways. Firstly. people arn't omnicient. Their perception of the likely outcomes of any action they take might be wrong. Secondly, everyone has a different "Moral Compass" based on their experiences, religion, upbringing and any number of other factors. Therefore, it is difficult to judge anyone's decision as right or wrong. However, the fact remains that people take action for a reason, and that reason has to do with a number of internal and external factors. Now it become apparent that these two theories describe different parts of the same system of interaction. Ladder Theory does a good job of explaining why people are, or are not, attracted to each other and how women and men differ in that regard. Moral Compass Theory is convinient to explain why people undertake specific action. The problem lies in reconciling the two, as they dont appear to be compatible. For example, a guy might meet a woman who was extremely attractive to him, who he believes is interested in him and who is likely to sleep with him, and has a number of other good qualities. According to ladder theory, she would be placed near the top of the ladder, perhaps in the section "Would Actually Pursue" and if he was offered sex he would definatley take it. According to Moral Compass Theory though, a different answer might be arrived at. If the said woman was married, underage, a different religion, a woman who slept around, or if the said man was married, extremely religious, related to the woman or any other of hundreds of scenarios, many people would find that the response that aligned best with their "Moral Compass" would be to turn down the offer of a relationship/sex. Now we see how the two theories can appear to contradict each other. My goal here is to provide an explanation that reconciles the two theories. I got this idea from Mitch's physics analogy, and since I'm not nearly intense enough to reconcile the Theory of Quantum Mechanics with the Theory of General Relativity and come up with a Quantum Theory of Gravity, I will instead attempt to blend Ladder Theory and Moral Compass Theory and explain my Quantum Ladder Theory. My theory goes like this. When two people of the opposite sex meet, they quickly form opinions of each other based on an individual's framework of attraction (either the pie charts presented in Ladder Theory or using another scheme such as Blair's Perfect Woman Test, I will discuss this in more detail in a future post). A person will then give everyone they meet two ratings, one concerning how much they are interested in a physical relationship and another concerning how much they would like to be friends with the person. For men, these two ratings are intrinsically linked and almost never differ by a significant amount. This is why Classical Ladder Theory shows that men have only one ladder. If a man likes a woman enough to be her friend, he will also like her enough to have some sort of relationship with her. Women, on the other hand, often display large differences between the two ratings. A man can be low on both counts, in which case the woman will not hang out with him, he can be high on the relationship count and low on the friends count (which in classical ladder theory would mean he is on the "good ladder" and is probably a rich and good looking investment banker or an outlaw biker), he can be high on the friends count and low on the relationship count (on the friends ladder in classical theory) or he can be high on both counts (a very rare case which usually results in the woman being swept off her feet and being madly in love with the guy). Once a person has obtained a sense of where someone's counts are, they put them on a ladder. The addition to the ladder will be on the form of two statements, "I want to have a relationship with so and so" and "I want to be friends with so and so" Again, it it important to remember that for men, the location of the two statements on the ladder will be very close to each other but for women the two might be very far apart on the ladder. In Quantum Ladder Theory, everyone has only one ladder, and on it, in addition to all the statements (friend and relationship) of every person of the opposite sex, the ladder also includes all the value statements, goals and beliefs that a person uses in to make decisions in Moral Compass Theory. All of these statements are ranked in order of importance and intermingled with the statements about the opposite sex. When a person considers what action to take with regard to a certain member of the opposite sex, they consider where the person is on the ladder and what statements are above and below that rating. This theory explains the same things as Classical Ladder Theory and uses the same explanations for what happens in relationships where one person's rating is higher. It covers all the bases of Classical Theory, and addresses the problems inherent with it. I will run through some of those now, and how Quantum Theory deals with them.
1. Religiosity: Someone who does not believe in sex before marriage will rank people the same as everone else, but when considering action, for that person the Belief that "sex before marriage is wrong" is higher on their ladder than the Statement, "I want to have a relationship with so and so" This constrains the person from acting on their relationship statement. This does not affect the friends Statement, as the two have nothing to do with each other. In this case and similar cases, Classical Ladder Theory is wrong when it says that men cannot be friends with women without sex getting in the way, because in this case, a man will not act on his relationship Statement because it is constrained by his religious Belief, but he is free to act on his friends statement. The man will still be attracted to the women , but will not act on his attraction because of the constraint. This allows for stable friendships between men and women.
2. Loyalty: This is very similar to the above case, but here someone's Statement "I want to have a relationship with so and so" is constraned by the Value statement "Stealing another man's woman is wrong" or by the Belief "So and So's friendship is beneficial to me and if i steal his woman I will lose that friendship" or by both. Classical Theory's assertion that the people your friends are dating are not really your friends is complete crap and doesnt make sense.
3. Drunkenness: being drunk impairs your mental faculties and makes it much harder to judge where a given relationship statement, belief or value is on your ladder and thus often causes people to do things they wouldn't otherwise.
4. Exes: People are your exes for a reason. Often there is some sort of belief generated by a breakup that constrains one from acting on the relationship statement you have for that person.
5. The Casablanca Phenomenon: In Casablanca, Rick gives up the woman he loves to Victor because his Goal of "Defeating the Nazis" is higher on his ladder than his Statement "I am in love with Ilsa and want to have a relationship with her" This is an example of a situation where two statements are extremely close to one another on the ladder, and drama is created by individual events that affect the position of the two statements relative to one another. As the movie progresses, events cause small changes in the position of Rick's statements on his ladder and thus affect his actions.
6. The Summer/Ana Conundrum: This is a situation such as Seth has with Ana and Summer or Archie with Betty and Veronica. According to Classical Ladder Theory, either Summer or Ana would have to be higher on Seth's Ladder. By observation we can tell that's not the case. Instead, The four statements, "I would like to have a relationship with Ana", "I would like to be friends with Ana" , "I would like to have a relationship with Summer" and "I would like to be friends with Summer" are all very very close to each other on Seth's Ladder, as we would expect by the fact he is a guy and the fact he seems equally interested in both. The reason he is unable to choose is because although a guy's friends statment and relationship statement for a particular girl are intrinsically linked and close to each other they are not at exactly the same point. Ana's friends statement is higher than Summer's on Seth's Ladder, but Summer's relationship statement is higher than Ana's. Because Seth is male and unable to seperate his friends statement from his relationship statement, he finds himself in a bit of a pickle.
7 One Last Thing: Classical Ladder Theory has a mojor problem in the fact that it is static. You put someone on a ladder and they stay there. Quantum Ladder Theory is neccesarily a dynamic theory. Every experience one has changes one's ladder very slightly. Values come and go, Beliefs are confirmed or rejected, Goals are achieved or revised and Statements, either relationship or friendship, move slightly as one continues to interact with the person. This is illustrated well in the Casablanca Phenomenon, and also provides a second explanation for the behaviour of exes.
I feel that this theory is better than Classical Ladder Theory and solves all the problems that had been really bothering me about it. I know im a big nerd, but this was fun.