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This got too big to be a reply to a reply in a blog. I hope I'm not breaking too many rules by breaking it out into a new blog entry.
In reply to another blog entry Eric points to game theory research about getting a good solution in reasonable time rather than the best solution on longer time by limiting the problem space. Eric's advice is sound. Most problems are complex, searching a subset for a good enough fit is better than searching the whole list for the best solution. Most of us do this without even realizing that we are.
I think that in school I did a research project on game theory. It seems so long ago now that I can't tell if I'm making things up or if it really did happen. Anyway, Imagined or otherwise, it was fun work. There are simple, zero sum games like tick-tack-toe and chess. There is always a winner and a looser or at least a non ambiguous tie. Some of us might think about our lives in zero sum terms. Even if we don't use those words to describe it. It's an easy model. I fall into it too often myself. I say to my self there are winners and losers: Darn it! I'm Karen! You're not gong to get me to wear a mask just so I can shop in your store!
We are always dealing with incomplete information we are using heuristic methods to gloss over complex details. the world is complex, almost unpredictable and dispassionate. Sure we have pretty good models for lots of the easy things like getting electricity to my house so I can heat water for my tea. Or putting a Tesla roadster into solar orbit. But the hard things are still hard. We are crap when it comes to dealing with each other.
I've started listening to Issac Asimov's Foundation book from about 1951. I had read it when I was ten or thirteen or something. Audible is the best thing ever. Anyway the idea of Psychohistory is a bust. Maybe someday. maybe we can have a reductionist predictive model for human behavior. Maybe it will only work in a universe where you can ignore the details of how to travel galactic distances instantly.
We don't live in that universe. In our world people are a mess. We're lazy, incompetent and scared at 10:15. Then at 11:45 we're magnificent god like beings capable of guiding the universe. I love us. Even when I hate us I still love us. I think the thing I like most about science fiction is that it is hopeful. It assumes that we will all be here to deal with problems like the collapse of the galactic empire. I hope they are right.
I'm a sucker for aphorisms. One of my favorites is: "For every problem there is a simple and obvious solution that is wrong."
the heuristic I described for picking a story on BCTS is wrong. It misses so many good things. And maybe, just maybe it is so wrong that it leaves out the best stuff that BCTS has to offer. I may never know.
Here's another of my favorites. I wonder how many women make these mistakes too.
Peace.
“The Six Mistakes of Man
The illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others.
The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and study.
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C. — 43 B.C.)
Comments
Change the method
Sometimes when you realize that your chosen method (analytical or "traditional" optimization) does not work well with your problem, a better option than modifying your problem (e.g. reducing the problem size by removing some variables) is to switch to a different method.
I once did a thesis on evolution strategy (related to genetic algorithms, but using real numbers instead of binary bits) and that technique can give you acceptable results when you have only a fixed time available that is much to short for an exhaustive search of the problem space (well, with real numbers there would be no limit to consumed time anyway ...).
So, if analytical methods don't work in your situation, why not try to put your trust in stochastics and let a random number generator decide? The "Random Solo" has led me to a lot of stories that I might not have started reading otherwise (and yes, in some cases the abstract or first few paragraphs were sufficient to decide, "not for me", but the majority fit my taste adequate to good - and then you can start consuming that author's remaining works).
The Six Mistakes of Man
It's amazing how many of the ancients wrote thing about there times that sound like they lived today.
I think it shows how times change, but people don't. Thousands of years later, we're still the same mess we started out as.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann