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p.2 We obtain our factual knowledge through inquiry. Inquiry as such is the practice of question-resolution.
p.8 It is a salient rule of rational procedure to accept pro tem - here and now - that the best we can possibly do in the circumstances is good enough as a basis for procedures.
p.9 What we claim to know is, often as not, not actual knowledge of assumed truth but only our best available estimate of the truth of the matter. We treat those claims as though they were actually known to be true, even though this proceeding may in the end turn out no better than an unjustified presumption.
p.13 Cognitive defaults are beliefs that we endorse in certain circumstances not because they are directly evidentiated, but because there is no counterevidence to dislodge them from a small cognitive beachhead... a default is a thesis which, as a matter of policy, stands as acceptable unless there is some overt reason to think otherwise... Default reasoning represents an economy of processes: it reflects a policy determinate to go forward with which we have in hand on the most economical basis... It means that if and when there is reason to resolve a question one way of the other, then we should do so on the basis of what - at the time - appears to be in line with the best (i.e., strongest) reasons.
p.16 And the validation of our proceedings here lies in the general principle of risk management. For what is at issue with presumption is at bottom... the implementation of a principle, and thus in effect, the adoption of a policy. And rationality here - as elsewhere in matters of practical procedure - pivots on the principle of a favorable balance of potential benefit over potential loss.
p.16 In many situations default reasoning affords the best-available pathway to our ultimately very practical requirement for information - for answering in a cogent and circumstantially responsible way a question that we need to resolve. In a difficult world where we are often at a loss for needed information, the fruits of plausible reasoning will often have to serve us in place of seriously consolidated knowledge.
p.17 what is at issue is not a truth-claim but a policy or procedure. And such policies of procedure are... justified... in the practical or pragmatic order of deliberation. [JLJ - perhaps text should be 'policies or procedures'. What we need is a practical way to proceed - the "truth" may or may not be available to us as we decide. Consider a court case where the defendant gets off on a technicality. This is a side effect of a court system that runs on a procedure, rather than an absolute edict to find the truth.]
p.17 In the end, then, the justification of our cognitive presumptions is not that they provide a fail proof pathway to the truth of things but rather that they afford the best we can do in the circumstances to meet our need... Default reasoning is a matter of taking cognitive risks... they are carefully contrived to lead - far more often than not - to acceptable declarations...defaults... are justified not by specifically substantive evidence, but in systemic grounds, and their validation rests, in the in the final analysis, a pragmatic rather than strictly epistemic considerations.
p.18 What we take to be knowledge is not something zapped into our brains from on high: its presence there is the product of human inquiry and effort - of human contrivance or praxis in short. And in this praxis the process of presumption and the deployment of defaults plays a pivotal and indispensable part.
p.18 Default reasoning plays a significant role in... artificial intelligence.
p.22 Errors of the first kind: false positives... Errors of the second kind: false negatives... the reality of it is that with any given productive process there is a relationship of teeter-totter complementarity between the two types of errors, with those of the one hand reducible only at the expense of increasing those of the other.
The problem, clearly, is to get the balance right.
p.25 The net that catches all the guilty will capture some of the innocent as well, and the door that provides exit for all the innocent will allow some of the guilty to slip out with them... There is, unfortunately, no single way in by which error enters into human contrivances... The key fact is simply that all human processes and arrangements are error-prone
p.25 the reality of it is that there are many questions which can be answered only when approximation is accepted and imprecision admitted... we must often settle for imprecise answers to difficult questions... what we usually understand by knowledge is precise knowledge and by answers to questions we mean exact answers.
p.26 many of the quantities that are crucially important in the management of human affairs are such that the common desideratum of precision has no bearing upon them at all... With such factors there is no practicable way of achieving a precise determination. Here the idea of "for all practical purposes" must play a critical role because theoretical precision is not only unachievable but undefinable.
p.28 Cognitive errors are principally of two sorts:
- Errors of the first kind: to reject what should be accepted...
- Errors of the second kind: To accept what should be rejected...
Seeing that we have no direct access way to the truth save via the process of inquiry, the occurrence of errors (of both kinds!) is virtually inevitable. The two kinds of errors stand in a relationship of tetter-totter balance. [JLJ - no, there is a third kind of error - the kind you get when you fail to thoroughly proofread your manuscript.]
p.29 In treating what is likely as true we can certainly go wrong. Yet we will generally be right as long as we operate a sensible methodology of inquiry... In accepting the probable, well-evidentiated, etc. as true we are implementing a reasonable policy of practical procedure. No categorical assurance is available to us here. Nevertheless we have no choice but to proceed in this way as a matter of practical policy that will lead us aright more often than not.
p.31 what we have to deal with here is an essentially seismological standard of importance. It is based on the question "If the concept or thesis at issue were abrogated or abandoned, how large would the ramifications and implications of this circumstance be?"
p.32 Importance... represents the extent to which one thing deserves more attention (time, effort, energy) than another. The crucial thing for importance is thus inherent in the question of how much - how prominent a place in the sun does a certain idea or concept deserve... the crucial determinative factor for increasing importance is the extent of seismic disturbance of the cognitive terrain.
p.32 no matter how true and well-evidentiated a factual claim may be, if it is trivial and uninformative, then it can play little constructive role in the cognitive scheme of things... in the present state of theory of knowledge, the issues of informativeness, significance, and importance represent a missing dimension of the enterprise.
p.38 We try to economize our cognitive effort. We use the simplest workable means to our ends exactly because the others are harder to use. Whenever possible, we analogize the present case to other similar ones... we use the simplest viable formulations because they are easier to remember and simpler to use. [JLJ - yes, but the mind has an incredibly powerful ability to discover (and then subconsciously process) meaningful detail - we glance and then decide to change lanes, but the mind processes the scene in the glance, extracting the richly detailed cues and acting accordingly. It seems that we just glance behind us before we change lanes, but in reality we are processing the situation for fast-moving or hidden cars also changing lanes, or cars towing low-riding trailers - what seems to be simple - a glance - is not necessarily so, if we consider all the details of the subconscious cognitive processing involved. Consider programming a machine to change lanes when driving a car on a fast-moving, congested highway - we cannot just tell it to "glance" and then go - we have to tell it specifically what to look for in that glance.]
p.41 Why use a more complex solution where a simple one will do as well? [JLJ - sorry Nick, but in a competitive situation, your opponent will likely have considered the simple solution, and will be ready when you try it.]
p.44 In the final analysis oversimplification is inevitable for limited intelligences seeking to come to grips cognitively with an endlessly complex world.
p.46-47 Oversimplification becomes a serious cognitive impediment by failing to take note of factors that are germane to the matters at hand, thereby doing damage to our grasp of the reality of things. Whenever we unwittingly oversimplify matters we have a blind-spot where some facet of reality is concealed from our view.
p.58 Complexity is something that we always have to reckon with as we try to come to cognitive terms with the world.
p.59 Simplification is a purposive endeavor, and accordingly has a rational dimension. We simplify matters in order to conserve our limited resources of time, energy, and treasure [JLJ - effort? possibly a typo] in the course of purposing our aims and objectives. It is only rational that we should do so... Simplification is a matter of omitting detail.
p.59 Oversimplification... constitutes a much-neglected topic, there being (as best I can tell) no systematic treatment of it whatsoever... Oversimplification is the result of omitting relevant detail.
p.60 Oversimplification occurs when some significantly relevant information is omitted, thus giving exaggerated significance to whatever is included.
p.63 From the point of view of the present, yesterday's science always seems oversimplified.
p.64 The fact of it is that scientific progress is a matter of correcting for oversimplification because over-simple theories invariably prove untenable in a complex world.
p.66 Oversimplification always involves errors of omission. It occurs whenever someone leaves out of account features of an item that bear upon a correct understanding of its nature.
p.66 Oversimplification involves the loss of information... Oversimplification occurs when simplification is carried to an extent that is counterproductive in relation to the aims of the enterprise at hand through the omission of issue-pertinent detail.
p.67 Why do we ever oversimplify? Why don't we simply take those ignored complications into account? The answer is that in the circumstances we simply do not know how to do so.
p.75 Among... causes of modeling failure, by far the most common and threatening is oversimplification, which becomes a serious cognitive impediment by failing to take note of factors that are germane to the matters at hand, thereby doing damage to our grasp of the reality of things.
p.75 Oversimplification is the bane of modeling... when a model is used as basis for large-scale policy decisions, its misfiring can have consequences that are not just local to the particular issue at hand but can call the entire process into question.
p.75-76 if the inadequacies of the models - however severe they be - do not impede the realization of the correlative purposes, then their imperfections are effectively irrelevant and immaterial.
p.139 Importance is a comparative conception: one thing is more important than another... the importance of things is in many or most cases something we can measure.
p.142 Cognitive importance is the characteristic standard by which we assess the value of knowledge. It relates to what is important for understanding... It is perhaps the most characteristic and paradigmatic mode of importance.
p.145 Inquiry - investigation and research - invariably requires the investment of time, energy, and resources. And importance... is bound to play a prominent role in the rational management of such allocations.
p.145 Matters that bear on the preservation of human life - medicine or nutrition, for example - possess an importance quite apart from any particular individual's view on the matter. [JLJ - this touches on the concept of critical success factors]
p.146 To say that one fact or finding is more important than another within the problem-setting of a particular subject-matter domain is to make a judgment of worth or value. Accordingly, it merits a greater expenditure of intellectual resources - of attention, concern, time, and effort to discover, learn, explain, and teach the item at issue.
p.147 Importance... represents the extent to which one thing deserves more attention (time, effort, energy) than another.
p.147 something is important to the extent that the positivity provided by its presence exceeds that provided by its absence. [JLJ - or, and importantly, its potential absence combined with a substitution or compensation. An office manager has to ask him or herself what it would take to replace each employee. If he or she can easily replace a worker, then that worker is not as important as someone who is not as easily replaced.]
p.149 With virtually any issue or activity we can and should ask: How much time, money, effort, and concern does it deserve? ...The intelligent allocation of effort, and of resources in general, is a critical factor for rationality at large.
p.150 Now if one fact of [JLJ - or? possible typo] finding deserves an additional one percent of the overall pie of attention, concern, etc. then that percent has to come away from something else. To assign more importance to something is to attribute less importance to another.
p.153 it should be clear that when we ourselves actually engage in the business of attributing importance to facts and findings we are providing estimates of importance... We are, in sum, constrained to proceed at the level of estimation by letting apparent stand in for actual importance... We can, of course, be mistaken on our judgments of importance.
p.154 The pivotal role of hindsight makes the fact that apparent importance - importance as we judge it here and now - is something rather different from real importance: that is, importance as it will eventually emerge with the progress of science.
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