Archives for category: limited rationality
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Rational versus reasonable

May 16, 2020 //
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Practical reason:
“All the forms of rationality so far considered involve proceeding from one belief to another. But sometimes people proceed from belief to action. Here desire as well as belief is relevant, since successful rational action is action that satisfies one’s desires.” Encyclopaedia Britannica.

On behaving reasonably:
“The standard of behaviour is external. Generally, the law examines only conduct, not the excitability, ignorance, or stupidity that may cause it. The courts determine what the hypothetical “reasonable person” would have done in the situation. Such standards also demand a degree of foresight in anticipating the negligence of others—especially of special groups such as children.
The reasonable-person test presumes certain knowledge—e.g., that fire burns, water may cause drowning, and cars may skid on wet pavement. Community custom will influence such presumptions, such as the practice of driving on a certain side of the road even on private roads, a situation in which laws do not apply.“

“The Supreme Court on Monday (June, 2018) ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who had refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple. The court’s decision was narrow, and it left open the larger question of whether a business can discriminate against gay men and lesbians based on rights protected by the First Amendment.“

““Why aren’t you wearing the mask?” Jesse asked the customer on a recent day at a store in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. “I am not here to question what you believe in. These are the rules. I am just asking you kindly to wear the mask.”
The customer, Genevieve Peters, who was recording the entire exchange, refused. “We are in America here,” she said, “Land of the free.” Then she turned her camera on other shoppers, who were less than amused: “Look at all of these sheep that are here, all wearing this mask that is actually dangerous for them.”
Jesse, identified only by his first name in the video, telephoned the police, who did not arrive. Finally, when Ms. Peters left the store, others customers burst into applause.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/coronavirus-masks-violence.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage)

‘The reasonable person test presumes certain knowledge’ … that businesses are allowed to ‘weed out’ customers based on the Bill of Rights… and that Covid-19 is a hoax…

‘Sheeple’…

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, In English, Intent, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, Trust

Rules and Regulations

May 16, 2020 //
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Regulations don’t really work unless they reflect the mindset of the majority…

And here’s how it works.

The rule about driving on the ‘right’ side of the road is observed without much need for enforcement.
Because the consequences are clear. And consistent, unless you drive a tank.

People had the same problem with condoms.
Until HIV came along…
Nowadays very few people engage in casual sex without one.

Give us time and … if SARS-CoV 2 will be around for long enough…

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Categories altruism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, forgiveness, Frames of mind, freedom, human rights, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

Rights.

May 14, 2020 //
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SARS-CoV 2 lock-downs have intensified the already heated discussion about ‘rights’. About “our rights”. Which have to be defended “at all costs”.

The way I see it, rights can be evaluated from two directions.
As ‘gifts’. Either gifted to us by ‘higher authorities’ or conquered for us by our ancestors.
Or as ‘procedures’. Elaborated in time by society and coined into law by our wise predecessors. Who had duly noticed that societies which respect certain rights work way better than those who don’t.

After all, societies are nothing but meta-organisms. Which, like all other organisms, function for only as long as the components interact according to certain, and very specific, rules. The ‘better’ the rules, the better the organism works.

In this sense, ‘rights’ are the code we use when interacting among ourselves. The rules we use when cooperating towards the well being of the society.

You don’t care about the society? Only about ‘your rights’?

OK, but if the society, as a whole, doesn’t work properly, who’s going to respect ‘your rights’?
Who’s going to help you when a bully will try to snatch ‘your rights’ away from you?
And bullies trying to separate you from ‘your rights’ are the most certain occurrence whenever societies cease to function properly.
Whenever the individual members of a society no longer respect each-other enough to collectively uphold their rights. Their rights.

Our rights.

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Categories 1989, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, freedom, human rights, In English, Intent, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, teleology

First things first.

May 13, 2020 //
2

Knowledge is being constantly (re)generated by us.

Everything we know, individually and collectively, has been first felt, then interpreted and finally communicated by us.

For something which has happened inside our sensorial sphere to become a piece of information we have to first notice it, then evaluate it and, finally, deem it important enough to remember. To codify it as information.

For something to make sense – whatever that means, the information we have about that something has to fit in to the rest of information we already have.

These three premises, which I hold to be self evident, lead me to the conclusion that:

Individual human beings will always have but a limited knowledge/understanding about/of the world.
A group of people are able to develop an aggregate understanding of the world which might be wider than those belonging to the individual members.
In time, a community of people will cobble together an even more complex weltanschauung. But still an incomplete one. For no other reason than the fact that the sum of a finite number of finite quantities will always be finite.

Consequences.

Since our understanding of the world is finite, determinism doesn’t make sense.
This being the reason for all authoritarian regimes/monopolistic arrangements caving in sooner rather than later. For the simple reason that those regimes/monopolies use but the brain power of those in power and waste the rest.
Our understanding of the world being finite, there is no way to demonstrate or refute God.

Which God is, anyway, nothing but a figment of our imagination.
Because of the very reasons I mentioned above.
Even if God itself would appear right now in a public square and on all the TV monitors in the world, the impression/understanding of him we would be left with after the experience would be of our own making.

Incomplete and inexact. Heavily dependent on everything else we already know.

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Categories authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, complementary ways of attending knowlege, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, In English, Intent, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, teleology, Trust

Conflict? Synergy? MAD?

May 12, 2020 //
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In nature, most organisms feed on other organisms.
Deer eats grass, wolf eats deer. Scavengers and microbes eat poop and corpses. All together ‘eventually’ enrich the soil. Allowing for more grass to grow.

One way to look at this is to call it ‘fight for life’. ‘Survival of the fittest’.
Yet this entire ‘carnage’ has a very interesting ‘conclusion’.

A fine tuned ecosystem. Which has lasted, as a system, for a couple of billions of years. Becoming more and more elaborate in the process.
And which has survived – as a system, I repeat, momentous events.
Asteroids, geomagnetic reversals, continental drift…

The ecosystem has been so stable that it allowed one creature to evolve so much as to develop a special trait.
Self-awareness.
Which has eventually given birth to ‘reason’. To ‘rational behavior’.

Which means that while wolves eat deer to satisfy their hunger we start wars to satisfy our egos.

We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

Carl von Clausewitz

Which wars have proven to be so destructive that we finally found a way to dissuade ourselves from starting new ones. New majors ones… until now…

And if you don’t have any clue about what I’m talking about, click on the next word.
MAD.

Don’t fret. It is actually a very rational concept.
Not reasonable at all, only rational.

Acknowledgment.
I was inspired to write this by David Sarac’s Twitter profile.
“Theory of evolution points to the conclusion that becoming, not being, is the essence of reality”

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Categories 1989, arrogance, awareness, Bounded rationality, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, fail better, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Psychology, teleology, The kind of world we live in

Existence

May 4, 2020 //
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Nothing existed before we came around. To notice.

They were there, alright. But didn’t existed, yet.

Most dictionaries do not discriminate between ‘being’ and ‘existing’.
But I still recall, vividly, those moments when – as a teenager, I tried to make myself remarked by the girl I fancied at that moment. More often than I’d like to remember, it was as if I didn’t existed at all.
I was standing there, making a fool of myself, yet I didn’t existed at all.

Simply because I wasn’t noticed.
By the significant one.

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Categories altruism, arrogance, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, complementary ways of attending knowlege, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, In English, Intent, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Psychology, teleology, Trust

Goals, costs and consequences.

May 3, 2020 //
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Everything which has a temporal dimension – movement, transformation or both, incurs costs and produces consequences.

From a rock sliding down a slope to me writing this.

The difference between these two being the simple fact that no rock has ever had any goal.

You see, the rock looses some energy and mass while sliding down. It accelerates at first but since no rock has ever slidden for ever.
Only rocks never do anything on their own. Something has to happen to them first.
They do bear the costs – they wear down, break, etc., yet they don’t mind. For they are not, at all, aware of what’s going on. And, anyway, completely unable to do anything about it. Hence not at all ‘responsible’ about any of the consequences produced by whatever they had been involved in. Happened to them, actually.

Fast forward to me. I’m not only alive – hence reactive to whatever happens to me, but also aware. Aware of my own awareness even.
I notice the costs I have to pay. Hence I try to minimize them.

And here’s the gist of the matter.
My awareness drives me to minimize the costs I incur during my life AND to be very careful about the consequences of my endeavors.

Theoretically, at least…

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, Chance, Choices we make, collective identity, evolution, fail better, Frames of mind, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game

Looking from outside the box

April 28, 2020 //
0

There are a lot of people who prod us to ‘think out of the box’.
And a few who dare to warn us about the perils of pushing it too far…

I’m gonna invite you to the next level.
Instead of sending your imagination to think outside the box – while the rest of you remains comfortably inside, let’s step outside ‘in person’.

Classic thinking outside the box does nothing but enlarges the box. Brings inside a portion of the outside. Moves the walls.
Bringing in a lot of additional clutter in the process.

By stepping outside, physically, you have the opportunity to actually see the problem as an ‘independent’ box. Separated from you and separated from the environment.

How about this for a change in perspective?

This way it will be easier for you to notice, and carefully examine, the links which exist between you and the problem. Between ‘the’ problem and the rest of the problems. Between the problems and the environment. The place where you have to cope with the problems.

The place where you live.

And that, my friend, is your biggest problem.
How to step out of your own life.
In order to make it better.

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Categories altruism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, complementary ways of attending knowlege, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, In English, Intent, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Mindset, Mutual Respect, skin in the game

The cart before the horse.

April 27, 2020 //
0

I need you to pretend a few things.

That you don’t know what a cart is. Or a horse.
That you are a logical machine.
That you are told a cart is something laden with merchandise, that the horse is what moves the cart and that the purpose of the whole endeavor is to transport the merchandise from A to B.
Then you will be asked to stack the three elements according to their importance.

How likely are you to arrange them in this order:
Merchandise, cart, horse?

It would be perfectly logical, right?

Remember that you don’t know anything else but what you’ve just been instructed.
That the ‘action’ is ‘transport merchandise M, laden in cart C – moved by the horse H, from A to B’.

Mere logic convinces you that the most important thing here is M. Simply because the whole brouhaha revolves around M. Followed by C – closest to M, and only then by H. Right?

Only mere logic is seldom enough… Each of those three has its own merits and their relative importance depends on many things.

On what the owner thinks about each of them. If all three belong to the same person.
On the relationship between the person asked to determine their relative importance and each of those elements.
The owner of the merchandise will certainly consider his property to be more important than either horse or carriage. But will consider the horse more important than the cart if the merchandise has to arrive sooner rather than whenever. Or the carriage more important than the horse if the merchandise is fragile…
The owner of a single horse will try to protect the animal. Simply because he will also need it tomorrow.
The owner of the trucking company will ask the drivers to drive the horses to their limits. Simply because he has so many of them.
And so on.

My point being that logic is almost never enough.
We must also understand what’s going on there before passing judgement on something.

Otherwise we’ll end up scratching our heads.


Click the drawing above and read what tborash has to say about the whole thing. He’s right too, you know.

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, complementary ways of attending knowlege, effective communication, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, teleology

Economy, profit, banking system

April 26, 2020 //
1

What do we have an economy for?

To make ends meet? To make it easier for our needs to be met?

What do we have a banking/financial system for? To mobilize capital for the economy? To make it possible for our needs to be met easier? More efficiently?

Or just for profit to be made?

“It really is possible to do two good things at once: address the abuse of the working poor by payday-loan and check-cashing outfits while expanding the range of services provided by the USPS. Media outlets have called Warren’s proposal “radical.” That’s ludicrous. She’s simply using her position and prominence to highlight the findings of a new study by the Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General, which notes that roughly 68 million Americans are underserved by the private banking system. “With post offices and postal workers already on the ground,” says Warren, “USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don’t have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods.”

This is not a new idea. From 1911 to 1967, the Postal Service maintained its own banking system, allowing citizens to open small savings accounts at local post offices—actually a better approach than “partnering” with banks. The system was so successful that after World War II, it had a balance of $3 billion, roughly $30 billion in today’s dollars. Congress did away with postal banking in the 1960s, but post offices in other countries—including Japan, Germany, China and South Korea—provide banking services. Japan Post Bank is consistently ranked as one of the world’s largest financial institutions based on assets.”

Or, to put it the other way around,
‘what profit is?’

The well deserved ‘consequence’ – considered as such by the vast majority of the stakeholders, of a well-done job?
Or a self serving benchmark to be reached at all costs? Which costs are to be ‘shouldered’ by anybody else but the profiteer himself… till reality slaps us, all of us, over our faces…

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, complementary ways of attending knowlege, cooperation, Economy, effective communication, evolution, fail better, Frames of mind, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Money as goal, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children
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