5.2. ADAPTIVE APPROACH: IMPORTANCE OF HEURISTICS 27
5.2 ADAPTIVE APPROACH: IMPORTANCE OF
HEURISTICS
Gerd Gigerenzer, German psychologist, agrees with Simon’s concept of the bounded rationality.
He further points out [3] that as our world is complex and uncertain, we must make decisions
with limited knowledge, resources, and time. But, most rational approaches ignore these con-
straints and they assume that we have perfect information and unlimited time.
As a typical example of such an incomplete information case, he takes up the case of carry-
ing a patient to the emergency hospital. We cannot perform complete testing to find out which
department we should bring him to. We must make a decision at once, but our information
is very limited. is is the constraint in the real world. So, he pointed out the importance of
an adaptive approach, which is none other than a trial and error approach such as Abduction,
PDSA, etc.
Putting it another way, we do DESIGN always, because our knowledge is very much
limited. But to go on, we must make a decision, no matter how limited our knowledge may be.
5.3 CURRENT AI: ITS LIMITATIONS
In fact, this is the issue AI is facing today to develop further. Current AI works so well in
the complete information world, but such disparate problems as Gigerenzer took up cannot be
solved by today’s AI because information in our real world is incomplete.
erefore, it must be added that real constraints may change, or we can change the con-
straints, if needed. Rational approaches assume that constraints are hard, i.e., they cannot be
changed. But in the real world, constraints are soft and negotiable.
5.4 RATIONALITY: MATHEMATICAL AND REAL WORLD
us, mathematical rationality and rationality of the real world are different.
Yesterday, our world was small and closed, and changes were small and smooth. erefore,
we could mathematically differentiate them and predict the future. But today, changes are sharp,
so we cannot differentiate them and predict the future.
5.5 DESIGN: ANOTHER AREA OF RATIONALITY
Anyway, we should stress that design is another area of rationality. Strangely enough, in design
creativity comes up as the most important keyword, but decision making does not. But to be
creative, we must decide which way we should go. We do not know anything about the world
toward which we are heading. We are exploring a New World.
In the Westward Movement in the U.S., the explorers had to create their paths to achieve
their goals. It is a strategic action and decisions are needed to make another step forward. De-
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