Basics in Decisions Making

Using Cumulative and Combined Intelligence

By Anthony Comerford

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1 Introduction ...............................................................................................5
2 Human Intuition and Decision making ......................................................8
2.1 What it is Human Intuition?................................................................8
2.2 What does Science know about Intuition? .......................................10
2.3 Appling what we know about Intuition to decision making ...............13
2.4 Effect of Random events on Intuition and Artifical Intelligence ........13
2.5 Knowing the limitations of Human Intuition and employment of other
methods .....................................................................................................41
3 The Search for Best Decision Making Techniques .................................46
4 Clarifying Importance in a Decision: Consequence Verses Effectiveness
48
5 Decision Maker Profiles and Styles ........................................................50
5.1 Cognitive styles ...............................................................................50
5.2 Optimizing vs. satisficing .................................................................50
5.3 Combinatoral vs. positional..............................................................50
6 What is important- the desire outcome of the decision to be made. .......52
6.1 Cognitive and personal biases.........................................................52
6.2 The Dangers of Lock-in decision-making.........................................53
6.3 Contents ..........................................................................................54
6.4 [edit] Decision making process ........................................................54
6.5 [edit] Formation................................................................................54
6.6 [edit] Occurrence .............................................................................55
6.7 [edit] Prevention...............................................................................55
6.8 [edit] See also..................................................................................55
6.9 [edit] References .............................................................................55
7 Priorities in decision making: Comparing to compare-wise Decision
Making ...........................................................................................................56
8 Decisions That result in More Decisions: The Evolution of the Decision
Tree ...............................................................................................................61
9 Mind Mapping .........................................................................................61
9.1 ..............................................................................................................61
9.2 Contents ..........................................................................................62
9.3 [edit] Characteristics ........................................................................62
9.4 [edit] Mind map guidelines ...............................................................63
9.5 [edit] History.....................................................................................63
9.6 [edit] Uses........................................................................................64
9.7 [edit] Effectiveness in learning .........................................................65
9.8 [edit] Tools .......................................................................................66
9.9 [edit] Trademarks.............................................................................66
9.10 [edit] See also..................................................................................66
9.11 [edit] References .............................................................................66
10 conceptual graphs, and semantic networks. The basic idea is that a
visual metaphor enhances intuitive thinking, inductive reasoning, and pattern
recognition—..................................................................................................67
11 Decisions of Serendipity, the Black Swan and will of the collective.....68
11.1 Contents ..........................................................................................69
11.2 [edit] Background ........................................................................69
11.3 [edit] Identifying a black swan event ................................................70
11.4 [edit] Coping with black swan events ...............................................70

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 11.5 [edit] Epistemological approach.......................................................70
11.6 [edit] Taleb's ten principles for a black swan robust world ...............71
11.7 [edit] See also..................................................................................72
11.7.1 [edit] Books by Taleb ................................................................72
11.8 [edit] References .............................................................................72
11.9 [edit] External links ..........................................................................73
11.10 Contents.......................................................................................75
11.11 [edit] Overview: Black Swan Theory.............................................75
11.12 [edit] Sales ...................................................................................75
11.13 [edit] Coping with Black Swan Events ..........................................75
11.14 [edit] Summary.............................................................................76
11.14.1 [edit] Part one Umberto Eco's anti-library, or how we seek
validation 77
11.15 [edit] Arguments...........................................................................77
11.15.1 [edit] Higher frequency..........................................................78
11.15.2 [edit] The huge effect ............................................................78
11.15.3 [edit] Limited human knowledge............................................78
11.15.4 [edit] Not all experts deserve the title ....................................79
11.15.5 [edit] The narrative fallacy.....................................................80
11.16 [edit] Yevgenia's Character ..........................................................80
11.17 [edit] See also ..............................................................................80
11.18 [edit] Notes...................................................................................80
11.19 [edit] References..........................................................................81
11.20 [edit] External links .......................................................................81
12 Chess and Decision Making................................................................82
12.1 Contents ..........................................................................................82
12.2 [edit] Predispositioning Theory ........................................................82
12.3 [edit] Structure of values ..................................................................84
12.4 [edit] The role of subjectivity ............................................................85
12.5 [edit] Calculus of Predispositions.....................................................86
12.6 [edit] See also..................................................................................87
13 The Stages of a group Decision ..........................................................87
13.1 Decision-Making Stages ..................................................................87
14...................................................................................................................89
15 Morality in decision making .................................................................89
16 Understanding the problem before presenting the question................91
17 Emotions in Decision making ..............................................................91
18 Markov decision process.....................................................................92
18.1 Contents ..........................................................................................93
18.2 [edit] Definition ............................................................................93
18.3 [edit] Problem ..................................................................................94
18.4 [edit] Solution...................................................................................94
18.4.1 [edit] Notable variants...............................................................95
18.5 [edit] Extensions ..............................................................................96
18.5.1 [edit] Partial observability..........................................................96
18.5.2 [edit] Reinforcement Learning ..................................................96
18.6 [edit] Alternative notations ...............................................................96
18.7 [edit] See also..................................................................................97
19 Combined Decision Making.................................................................97
19.1 Wisdom of the crowd .......................................................................97

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 19.2 Contents ..........................................................................................98
19.3 [edit] Definition of Crowd..................................................................98
19.4 [edit] Benefits...................................................................................98
19.5 [edit] Problems.................................................................................98
19.6 [edit] See also..................................................................................99
19.7 [edit] References .............................................................................99
19.8 Decentralized decision making ........................................................99
19.9 Contents ........................................................................................100
19.10 [edit] History ...............................................................................100
19.11 [edit] See also ............................................................................100
20 Participative decision making ............................................................100
20.1 Contents ........................................................................................102
20.2 [edit] Introduction ...........................................................................102
20.3 [edit] Advantages...........................................................................103
20.4 [edit] Disadvantages ......................................................................104
20.5 [edit] Types ....................................................................................105
20.5.1 [edit] Collective .......................................................................106
20.5.2 [edit] Democratic.....................................................................106
20.5.3 [edit] Autocratic.......................................................................106
20.5.4 [edit] Consensus.....................................................................106
20.5.5 [edit] Delegated PDM based on Expertise..............................107
20.6 [edit] Concepts and Methods .........................................................107
20.6.1 [edit] Dimensions of PDM .......................................................107
20.6.2 [edit] Using Foresight..............................................................108
20.6.3 [edit] The Diamond of Participatory Decision Making .............109
20.6.4 [edit] Vigilant Interaction Theory .............................................109
20.6.5 [edit] Role of Information ........................................................110
20.6.6 [edit] Role of Technology........................................................110
20.7 [edit] Applications of PDM..............................................................111
20.7.1 [edit] Environment...................................................................111
21 Fear of the Hive Mind Fear and the tyranny the minority control.......112
21.1 [edit] Minoritarianism in small deliberative groups .........................112
21.2 [edit] See also................................................................................113
22 Improving future decision making with cumulative intelligence .........113
23 Decision making software .................................................................131

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1 Introduction
Louis Pasteur: Decision Making Quotes
Chance favours only the prepared mind.

Decision making can be regarded as the processes of selecting one or more

choices. The choices that we select often have monumental impacts on
ourselves and the people around us. It is surprising yet that decision making
as a subject is given such little attention by most education systems
throughout the world. I did not study decision making directly until I chose it as
an elective subject in my 3rd year of university.

Many great written works on decision making are available, but they have
made little headway in penetrating the mainstream education system. I
strongly suspect that the level of writing of most Decision making books is too
dry and at an academic level that is too high to be of interest to most people.
Knowing this, I have tried to structure this book in such a way that it is
comprehensible by most. Many of the great works on the scientific study of
decision making delve heavily into the mathematical modelling of the decision
making process. Whilst it is a very important part of good decision making this
book recognises the problems many people have with such an approach and
will try to ease the reader into these concepts.

Another facet of decision making that is rarely touched on by many of our

social and education systems is the importance of cumulative and combined
intelligence in the process. Cumulative intelligence in decision making is the
use of historically collected information in the selection process. Another
important dimension to successful decision making is combined intelligence.
Combined intelligence in the decision making is the participation of 2 or more
people in the process. Democratic governance with a free press can be
considered a decision making process with cumulative and combined
intelligence with the electorate providing the combined intelligence and the
free press providing the cumulative intelligence. Interestingly, Democracy has
demonstrated to provide the societies that are managed by these systems the
highest standards of living and security. These societies also have been able
to lead the world in technologic advancement and human rights. This is no
accident and a testament to the power of effective cumulative and combine
intelligence. Winston Churchill was once quotes as saying that democracy is a
bad form of government, but we are yet to find one better. Decision making
using cumulative and combine intelligence is a difficult process but we are yet
to find a better approach.

Decision making and problem solving are almost interchangeable and people
generally see Decision making is a subset of problem solving. The key
difference between problem solving and decision making is problem solving is

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a process to achieve a particular goal and decision making is a process where
a choice of options is given to achieve a goal.
If a problem can be solved with only 1 path of action then decision making is
not required, However, If the problem can be solved with multiple paths of
options then the decision making process needs to be employed. Take for
example one is selecting a car to purchase. Most cars will fulfil the criteria of
getting from A to B but fulfilling all the other criteria such as ride, safety,
reliability etc is were a decision making process needs to be used. It is
therefore understandable that decision making is seen as part of problem
solving. Pure problem solving is generally a more peaceful exercise, decision
making often invokes into a situation: upheaval, discomfort and confrontation.
Perhaps this is why it is shunned by many and also perhaps why our
education system focuses heavily on problem solving only and not problem
solving with decision making by our education system.

A good decision can be defined as a decision that efficiently meets the

intended outcome. Defining the intended outcome is an area of decision
making which is most fluid and is often not closely studied and quantified by
the decision maker. As a result many decisions are made as bad decision
these decisions are often of an intuitive nature, made by people using their
feelings alones. Time pressure often result in these type of decisions but fast
and simplistic methods are available that can be combined to reinforce or
challenge intuition. This book will present some these methods in later
chapters.

Nowadays, historical data and historical records are readily available to assist
in many decision making problems. Often they are incorrectly managed and
due to over complication of their weighting and application in a decision
making process they are ignored. This Book will touch on the management
and effective use of cumatlive intelligence in the decision making process and
the importance of clarity when applying cumatlive intelligence in decision
making.

Decision making involving groups and teams also can present many
problems. Leadership, governance and direction in combined intelligent
decision making are critical if good decisions are to be made. The application
of combined intelligence in decision making is full of noise that needs to be
filtered and selectively amplified. Tools are available for this and some will be
demonstrated in this book.