Triggered by Tommy Ayala smart village post about Bounded Rationality 2/26/2024 10:23 am
The discussion on bounded rationality, according to Wikipedia, was originally developed by Herbert A. Simon, date TBD. Wikipedia in 2023 defines bounded rationality as “the idea that rationality is limited when individuals make decisions, and under these limitations (?) rational individuals will select a decision that is satisfactory rather than optimal” ref 1.
Roger Malina muses :
I wonder why the concept of bounded rationalilty suddenly appealed to Tommy on a Sunday.
Bounded Rationality seems to be a reasonable proposition. One makes decisions based on the data one has access to on a relevant time scale. So, in a Smart Village the same applies since the term “smart” describes the way feedback loops are created using state of the art internet access and software access.
One aspect, that I think is relevant to our work, is the artificial distinction between local knowledge, global knowledge and knowledge at a distance. Different time scales are involved, but by definition a decision is time bound. Before and After.
Of particular relevance to our Smart Village initiative is that recent research has shown that bounded rationality also influences the topology of social networks.
Recently Robin Stezca has published “ Bounded Irrationality: a new perspective on economic behaviour”. They define bounded irrationality is focused on not losing control but with no intention of optimizing their decisions.
I guess the simple way of thinking about this is that one typically has to make a decision within a given time frame, which will allows some data analysis but not indefinite data analysis.
As Dan Boorstin pointed out: we have gone from a word that was meaning rich and data poor, to one that is data rich and meaning poor, an epistemological transformation as profound as realizing the earth went around the sun.
I haven’t had time to research further about how these ideas are apply or need to be modified by collective rationality vs irrationality vs individual bounded rationality.
One of the ideas of a smart village is that the feedbackloops are tighter so that maybe more rational decisions can be made, less biases by an individual’s boundaries of rationality. I like the term ‘thinking aloud’ which can be carried out individually or in groups. Our Smart Village workshop is an opportunity for thinking aloud and creating group bounded rationality vs individual bounded rationality.
This is beginning to sound like academic bullshit but a really good friend of mine, David, just called me in tears. His employer had just called to lay him off because they didn’t have enough work to employ him.
I did my best to extend the bounds of his rationality when his tone of voice made hidden references to ending things. I told him about my recent meditation discovery, when I was reacting to recent stress. It connects to a friend of a friend’s research on ‘daydreaming’. I have been thinking about it and for no rational reasons started writing some sentences backwards on the page.
Reading the words and letters in the backwards order gave me unexpected daydreams. Here goes:
Gnimaerdyad erolag, Sallad in SaxeT, Wow non pop tut na numahk , icniv ad odraneoL
Spoo esor eimaj
Thank you Jamie Rose for connecting the unconnectable. Our next topic is Despobablado.