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Seag511 karma

Interesting. I'm unfamiliar with your work (I'll have to change that!), so this topic might be completely unrelated. You compare decision making to a disinterested process like science. That's a good way to think about it, but human choice isn't really a disinterested process, is it? We evaluate any outcome of a choice with emotion, regardless of how algorithmic the process was. So wouldn't it make sense to try to include emotion as a logical component of choice?

I mean, I could make a logical choice to take a high-paying job in London, disregarding the fact that I hate wet weather and Brits make me irrationally angry. Those are just emotions, yet if I move to London I will be deeply unhappy with my logical choice, and I will ultimately just consider it a bad decision. Is there a way for algorithmic thinking to account for something like this?

Seag510 karma

Hey! Emotion is often cast as the opposition to reason and logic (or at least an invalid factor in logical decision making), as it leads us to make illogical decisions. Do you believe that emotion is a reasonable part of decision-making? In other words, can emotion be a legitimate weighted factor when evaluating potential outcomes in a logical manner?

Seag50 karma

I'll chip in here. I would say that a consequence that "complicates the original situation" is a negative one in a very simplified view of decision-making. When we're talking about coding software it works, but in the real world consequences are more complicated.

I mean, you can complicate the "original situation" in the real world, but yield results in other areas that are positive. For example I could devalue my job and slack off, resulting in inefficiency at work, but also giving me more time to work on my mystery novel. It's hard to judge this behaviour as negative because it depends what you consider the contingent "original situation" to be. I think that's the limitation of this kind of thinking.