I’m very confused. Because it seems like for you decision should not only clarify matters and narrow possibilities, but also eliminate all doubt entirely and prune off all possible worlds where the counterfactual can even be contemplated.
Perhaps that’s indeed how you define the word. But using such a stringent definition, I’d have to say I’ve never decided anything in my life. This doesn’t seem like the most useful way to understand “decision”—it diverges enough from common usage and mismatches with the hyperdimensional-cloud of word meaning for decision sufficiently to be useless in conversation with most people.
A decision is not a belief. You can make a decision and still be uncertain about the outcome. You can make a decision while still being uncertain about whether it is the right decision. Decision neither requires certainty nor produces certainty. It produces action. When the decision is made, consideration ends. The action must be wholehearted in spite of uncertainty. You can steer according to how events unfold, but you can’t carry one third of an umbrella when the forecast is a one third chance of rain.
In about a month’s time, I will take a flight from A to B, and then a train from B to C. The flight is booked already, and I have just have booked a ticket for a specific train that will only be valid on that train. Will I catch that train? Not if my flight is delayed too much. But I have considered the possibilities, chosen the train to aim for, and bought the ticket. There are no second thoughts, no dwelling on “but suppose” and “what if”. Events on the day, and not before, will decide whether my hopes[1] for the journey will be realised. And if I miss the train, I already know what I will do about that.
If “you can make a decision while still being uncertain about whether it is the right decision”. Then why can’t you think about “was that the right decision”? (Lit. Quote above vs original wording)
It seems like what you want to say is—be doubtful or not, but follow through with full vigour regardless. If that is the case, I find it to be reasonable. Just that the words you use are somewhat irreconcilable.
If “you can make a decision while still being uncertain about whether it is the right decision”. Then why can’t you think about “was that the right decision”?
Because it is wasted motion. Only when new and relevant information comes to light does any further consideration accomplish useful work.
One day I might write an article on rationality in the art of change ringing, a recreation I took up a few years ago. Besides the formidable technicalities of the activity, it teaches such lessons as letting the past go, carrying on in the face of uncertainty, and acting (by which I mean doing, not seeming) assuredly however unsure you are. I have also heard (purely anecdotally) that change ringers seem to never get Alzheimers.
When the decision is made, consideration ends. The action must be wholehearted in spite of uncertainty.
This seems like hyperbolic exhortation rather than simple description. This is not how many decisions feel to me—many decisions are exactly a belief (complete with bayesean uncertainty). A belief in future action, to be sure, but it’s distinct in time from the action itself.
I do agree with this as advice, in fact—many decisions one faces should be treated as a commitment rather than an ongoing reconsideration. It’s not actually true in most cases, and the ability to change one’s plan when circumstances or knowledge changes is sometimes quite valuable. Knowing when to commit and when to be flexible is left as an excercise...
This is not how many decisions feel to me—many decisions are exactly a belief (complete with bayesean uncertainty). A belief in future action, to be sure, but it’s distinct in time from the action itself.
But if you only have a belief that you will do something in the future, you still have to decide, when the time comes, whether to carry out the action or not. So your previous belief doesn’t seem to be an actual decision, but rather just a belief about a future decision—about which action you will pick in the future.
See Spohn’s example about believing (“deciding”) you won’t wear shorts next winter:
One might object that we often do speak of probabilities for acts. For instance, I might say: “It’s very unlikely that I shall wear my shorts outdoors next winter.” But I do not think that such an utterance expresses a genuine probability for an act; rather I would construe this utterance as expressing that I find it very unlikely to get into a decision situation next winter in which it would be best to wear my shorts outdoors, i.e. that I find it very unlikely that it will be warmer than 20°C next winter, that someone will offer me DM 1000.- for wearing shorts outdoors, or that fashion suddenly will prescribe wearing shorts, etc. Besides, it is characteristic of such utterances that they refer only to acts which one has not yet to decide upon. As soon as I have to make up my mind whether to wear my shorts outdoors or not, my utterance is out of place.
But if you only have a belief that you will do something in the future, you still have to decide, when the time comes, whether to carry out the action or not. So your previous belief doesn’t seem to be an actual decision, but rather just a belief about a future decision—about which action you will pick in the future
Correct. There are different levels of abstraction of predictions and intent, and observation/memory of past actions which all get labeled “decision”. I decide to attend a play in London next month. This is an intent and a belief. It’s not guaranteed. I buy tickets for the train and for the show. The sub-decisions to click “buy” on the websites are in the past, and therefore committed. The overall decision has more evidence, and gets more confident. The cancelation window passes. Again, a bit more evidence. I board the train—that sub-decision is in the past, so is committed, but there’s STILL some chance I won’t see the play.
Anything you call a “decision” that hasn’t actually already happened is really a prediction or an intent. Even DURING an action, you only have intent and prediction. While the impulse is traveling down my arm to click the mouse, the power could still go out and I don’t buy the ticket. There is past, which is pretty immutable, and future, which cannot be known precisely.
I think this is compatible with Spohn’s example (at least the part you pasted), and contradicts OP’s claim that “you did not make a decision” for all the cases where the future is uncertain. ALL decisions are actually predictions, until they are in the past tense. One can argue whether that’s a p(1) prediction or a different thing entirely, but that doesn’t matter to this point.
”If, on making a decision, your next thought is “Was that the right decision?” then you did not make a decision.” is actually good directional advice in many cases, but it’s factually simply incorrect.
That’s an interesting perspective. Only it doesn’t seem fit into the simplified but neat picture of decision theory. There everything is sharply divided between being either a statement we can make true at will (an action we can currently decide to perform) and to which we therefore do not need to assign any probability (have a belief about it happening), or an outcome, which we can’t make true directly, that is at most a consequence of our action. We can assign probabilities to outcomes, conditional on our available actions, and a value, which lets us compute the “expected” value of each action currently available to us. A decision is then simply picking the currently available action with the highest computed value.
Though as you say, such a discretization for the sake of mathematical modelling does fit poorly with the continuity of time.
Decision theory is fine, as long as we don’t think it applies to most things we colloquially call “decisions”. In terms of instantaneous discrete choose-an-action-and-complete-it-before-the-next-processing-cycle, it’s quite a reasonable topic of study.
A more ambitious task would be to come up with a model that is more sophisticated than decision theory, one which tries to formalize your previous comment about intent and prediction/belief.
I think it’s a different level of abstraction. Decision theory works just fine if you separate the action of predicting a future action from the action itself. Whether your prior-prediction influences your action when the time comes will vary by decision theory.
I think, for most problems we use to compare decision theories, it doesn’t matter much whether considering, planning, preparing, replanning, and acting are correlated time-separated decisions or whether it all collapses into a sum of “how to act at point-in-time”. I haven’t seen much detailed exploration of decision theory X embedded agents or capacity/memory-limited ongoing decisions, but it would be interesting and important, I think.
This seems like hyperbolic exhortation rather than simple description.
It is exhortation, certainly. It does not seem hyperbolic to me. It is making the same point that is illustrated by the multi-armed bandit problem: once you have determined which lever gives the maximum expected payout, the optimum strategy is to always pull that lever, and not to pull levers in proportion to how much they pay. Dithering never helps.
the ability to change one’s plan when circumstances or knowledge changes is sometimes quite valuable.
Yes. But only as such changes come to be. Certainly not immediately on making the decision. “Commitment” is not quite the concept I’m getting at here. It’s just that if I decided yesterday to do something today, then if nothing has changed I do that thing today. I don’t redo the calculation, because I already know how it came out.
I’m very confused. Because it seems like for you decision should not only clarify matters and narrow possibilities, but also eliminate all doubt entirely and prune off all possible worlds where the counterfactual can even be contemplated.
Perhaps that’s indeed how you define the word. But using such a stringent definition, I’d have to say I’ve never decided anything in my life. This doesn’t seem like the most useful way to understand “decision”—it diverges enough from common usage and mismatches with the hyperdimensional-cloud of word meaning for decision sufficiently to be useless in conversation with most people.
A decision is not a belief. You can make a decision and still be uncertain about the outcome. You can make a decision while still being uncertain about whether it is the right decision. Decision neither requires certainty nor produces certainty. It produces action. When the decision is made, consideration ends. The action must be wholehearted in spite of uncertainty. You can steer according to how events unfold, but you can’t carry one third of an umbrella when the forecast is a one third chance of rain.
In about a month’s time, I will take a flight from A to B, and then a train from B to C. The flight is booked already, and I have just have booked a ticket for a specific train that will only be valid on that train. Will I catch that train? Not if my flight is delayed too much. But I have considered the possibilities, chosen the train to aim for, and bought the ticket. There are no second thoughts, no dwelling on “but suppose” and “what if”. Events on the day, and not before, will decide whether my hopes[1] for the journey will be realised. And if I miss the train, I already know what I will do about that.
hope: (1) Desire for an outcome which one has only limited power to steer events towards. (2) A good breakfast, but a poor supper.
If “you can make a decision while still being uncertain about whether it is the right decision”. Then why can’t you think about “was that the right decision”? (Lit. Quote above vs original wording)
It seems like what you want to say is—be doubtful or not, but follow through with full vigour regardless. If that is the case, I find it to be reasonable. Just that the words you use are somewhat irreconcilable.
Because it is wasted motion. Only when new and relevant information comes to light does any further consideration accomplish useful work.
One day I might write an article on rationality in the art of change ringing, a recreation I took up a few years ago. Besides the formidable technicalities of the activity, it teaches such lessons as letting the past go, carrying on in the face of uncertainty, and acting (by which I mean doing, not seeming) assuredly however unsure you are. I have also heard (purely anecdotally) that change ringers seem to never get Alzheimers.
This seems like hyperbolic exhortation rather than simple description. This is not how many decisions feel to me—many decisions are exactly a belief (complete with bayesean uncertainty). A belief in future action, to be sure, but it’s distinct in time from the action itself.
I do agree with this as advice, in fact—many decisions one faces should be treated as a commitment rather than an ongoing reconsideration. It’s not actually true in most cases, and the ability to change one’s plan when circumstances or knowledge changes is sometimes quite valuable. Knowing when to commit and when to be flexible is left as an excercise...
But if you only have a belief that you will do something in the future, you still have to decide, when the time comes, whether to carry out the action or not. So your previous belief doesn’t seem to be an actual decision, but rather just a belief about a future decision—about which action you will pick in the future.
See Spohn’s example about believing (“deciding”) you won’t wear shorts next winter:
Correct. There are different levels of abstraction of predictions and intent, and observation/memory of past actions which all get labeled “decision”. I decide to attend a play in London next month. This is an intent and a belief. It’s not guaranteed. I buy tickets for the train and for the show. The sub-decisions to click “buy” on the websites are in the past, and therefore committed. The overall decision has more evidence, and gets more confident. The cancelation window passes. Again, a bit more evidence. I board the train—that sub-decision is in the past, so is committed, but there’s STILL some chance I won’t see the play.
Anything you call a “decision” that hasn’t actually already happened is really a prediction or an intent. Even DURING an action, you only have intent and prediction. While the impulse is traveling down my arm to click the mouse, the power could still go out and I don’t buy the ticket. There is past, which is pretty immutable, and future, which cannot be known precisely.
I think this is compatible with Spohn’s example (at least the part you pasted), and contradicts OP’s claim that “you did not make a decision” for all the cases where the future is uncertain. ALL decisions are actually predictions, until they are in the past tense. One can argue whether that’s a p(1) prediction or a different thing entirely, but that doesn’t matter to this point.
”If, on making a decision, your next thought is “Was that the right decision?” then you did not make a decision.” is actually good directional advice in many cases, but it’s factually simply incorrect.
That’s an interesting perspective. Only it doesn’t seem fit into the simplified but neat picture of decision theory. There everything is sharply divided between being either a statement we can make true at will (an action we can currently decide to perform) and to which we therefore do not need to assign any probability (have a belief about it happening), or an outcome, which we can’t make true directly, that is at most a consequence of our action. We can assign probabilities to outcomes, conditional on our available actions, and a value, which lets us compute the “expected” value of each action currently available to us. A decision is then simply picking the currently available action with the highest computed value.
Though as you say, such a discretization for the sake of mathematical modelling does fit poorly with the continuity of time.
Decision theory is fine, as long as we don’t think it applies to most things we colloquially call “decisions”. In terms of instantaneous discrete choose-an-action-and-complete-it-before-the-next-processing-cycle, it’s quite a reasonable topic of study.
A more ambitious task would be to come up with a model that is more sophisticated than decision theory, one which tries to formalize your previous comment about intent and prediction/belief.
I think it’s a different level of abstraction. Decision theory works just fine if you separate the action of predicting a future action from the action itself. Whether your prior-prediction influences your action when the time comes will vary by decision theory.
I think, for most problems we use to compare decision theories, it doesn’t matter much whether considering, planning, preparing, replanning, and acting are correlated time-separated decisions or whether it all collapses into a sum of “how to act at point-in-time”. I haven’t seen much detailed exploration of decision theory X embedded agents or capacity/memory-limited ongoing decisions, but it would be interesting and important, I think.
It is exhortation, certainly. It does not seem hyperbolic to me. It is making the same point that is illustrated by the multi-armed bandit problem: once you have determined which lever gives the maximum expected payout, the optimum strategy is to always pull that lever, and not to pull levers in proportion to how much they pay. Dithering never helps.
Yes. But only as such changes come to be. Certainly not immediately on making the decision. “Commitment” is not quite the concept I’m getting at here. It’s just that if I decided yesterday to do something today, then if nothing has changed I do that thing today. I don’t redo the calculation, because I already know how it came out.