Ian Parker wrote > McNamara's dictum seems on > the face of it to contradict the validity of Psychology as a > science.
I don't think so. That in unforseen events people switch to improvisation isn't suprising. Even an AGI, confronted with a novel situation and lacking data and models and rules for that, has to switch to ad-hoc heuristics. > Psychology, if is is a valid science can be used for modelling. True. And it's used for that purpose. In fact some models of psychology are so good that the simulation's results are consistent with what is empirically found in the real world. > Some of what McNamara has to say seems to me to be a little bit > contradictory. On the one hand he espouses "*gut feeling*". On the other > he says you should be prepared to change your mind. I don't see the contradiction. Changing one's mind refers to one's assumption and conceptual framings. You always operate under uncertainty and should be open for re-evaluation of what you believe. And the lower the probability of an event, the lesser are you prepared for it and you switch to gut feelings since you lack empirical experience. Likely that one's gut feelings operate within one's frame of mind. So these are two different levels. > John Prescott at the Chilcot Iraq inquiry said that the test of > politicians was not hindsight, but courage and leadership. What the .... > does he mean. Rule of thumb is that it's better to do something than to do nothing. You act, others have to react. As long as you lead the game, you can correct your own errors. But when you hesitate, the other parties will move first and you eat what they hand out to you. And don't forget that the people still prefer alpha-males that lead, not those that deeply think. It's more important to unite the tribe with screams and jumps against the enemy than to reason about budgets or rule of law--gawd how boring... :) > It seems that "*getting things right*" is not a priority > for politicians. Keeping things running is the priority. --- Now to the next posting --- > This is an interesting article. Indeed. > Google is certain to uncover the *real motivators.* Sex and power. ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
