Theories and Allegories
When a company needs to make an
unusual problem, its leadership asks a few company departments to provide a
report associated with the problem from department’s point of view – technical,
operational, financial, legal, etc. After reviewing these reports, the problem
is narrowed down and another set of reports is requested and so on. This chain
of iterations eventually leads to a decision.
These reports are
Theories; they encapsulate knowledge and experience of the company. Each one is
logically coherent, that it is possible to remember them and to catch a mistake
in reasoning. Different reports are produced from different points of View and
rarely could be logically combined in one. This is by design. Through
iterations, these Theories are tuned to situation and to those, who make
decisions. Eventually, decision-makers acquire enough understanding to make a Decision,
given existing time constraints.
This process is similar to what an
individual does, when he has to make a difficult Decision, only it is more
structured and explicit. Individuals also look at the problem from different
points of View, form Theories in bounds of each point of View, refine the set
of Views and associated Theories and eventually make a Decision.
Logic is a phenomenally useful tool
in decision-making, but about everything that could be done with logic is
packed in Theories and a decision-maker has to deploy some other tools, like
experience, vague discussions and intuition to arrive to a final decision.
The process of decision-making with
Views, Theories, iterations and possible minor experimentations to learn more
about the situation is used frequently and from ancient time people wanted to
have ways to create Theories faster. Thus “templates” of Theories emerged.
Unlike Theories, for which one
hardly could say how close they are to the situation at hand and to abilities
of the decision-maker to use them, “Templates” of Theories have solid
foundation – existing Theories and the potential variety of Theories built from
these templates. “Templates” could be made modular, placed in hierarchies
(where more abstract “Templates” used to build more concrete “Templates”), etc.
One who knows these “Templates” has
better chance to build a useful Theory, when needed, and build it quicker.
We learn these “Templates” as
technical courses, sciences, etc. Mathematics deals with the most abstract “Templates”.
Note though one paradoxical thing
about Theories. It is often possible to show that a given Theory is not
adequate – using it most likely would lead to a bad decision and it is possible
to point the circumstances, when such even could happen. The opposite – that
the Theory is adequate, is not possible to prove, never. However it is possible
to show that it is in agreement with Theories, which were successfully used in
similar circumstances and it is in agreement with existing experiences.
Theories are tools of exploration,
used in the process of decision-making. They are built,
corrected, discarded and new Theories are built instead.
It is counterproductive and often
dangerous to treat Theories as something describing “essence” of things, some
“reality” and compare Theories on the basis which one describes it better.
It is counterproductive to attempt
and build some Theories, which encapsulate a few of Theories used in the
process of decision-making. A Theory is bound together with logic and this
limits its reach. Hence a set of Theories is used and each Theory presents a
different logically coherent View on the problem. To achieve a unified mental
picture, some additional work has to be done, which often is not based on logic.
Each Theory is developed for a task
at hand; it discards some observations as irrelevant and emphasizes other. Blind
use of existing Theory, which was developed for finding a solution in one
situation, in the process of finding a solution in another situation is highly
dangerous – important observations could be ignored, because adherence to a Theory makes people at least
partially blind.
Some Theories require substantial
maturity to be formulated and applied properly. A hint how to build such
theories is passed in the form of Allegories.
They are generously written that
everyone who passes them alone gets something from it.
Alexander Liss 7/9/2019