On a recent trip to Las Vegas, I noticed something in the casinos that I hadn’t seen before. Now, I should point out that I don’t spend a lot of time in Las Vegas; my wife and I go there maybe once a year. And while there, we do very little gambling, usually limiting our […]
Tag Archives: decision making
Cluelessness–What We Don’t Know (Part III–Are We Hopelessly Clueless?)
At a press conference on June 6, 2002 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, in response to a question about the quality of intelligence about terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered his now-famous quote about “unknown unknowns:” “There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. […]
Cluelessness: What We Don’t Know (Part II–Everyday Anosognosia?)
A news story, reported by Michael A. Fuoco in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1995, began: “ARREST IN BANK ROBBERY, SUSPECT’S TV PICTURE SPURS TIPS At 5 feet 6 inches and about 270 pounds, bank robbery suspect McArthur Wheeler isn’t the type of person who fades into the woodwork. So it was no surprise that he […]
Cluelessness: What We Don’t Know (Part I)
Philosophers spend a lot of time wondering and worrying about questions like: what CAN we know?, what DO we know?, and how do we KNOW what we know?; so much so that an entire branch of philosophy, known as epistemology, deals with these and related questions about knowledge, and what exactly knowledge might be. Epistemological philosophers have also […]
Landing in the Fog
While Albert Hammonds was almost correct in his 1972 song, It Never Rains In Southern California, that doesn’t mean the sun is always shining. We call our own special brand of fog marine layer. It’s a dense layer of fog that rolls in off the ocean in Southern California, drawn in by the warm air over the […]
Seeing With Fresh Eyes
French novelist Marcel Proust wrote that, “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” To me, this sounds like the exact opposite of déjà vu. We all know that déjà vu feeling. It’s the distinct feeling that, even though we are in a completely unfamiliar place, somehow, we’ve […]
Stomping Grapes or Making Wine?
Too Many Choices?
While my wife and I were visiting my father-in-law in Pittsburgh, we did some grocery shopping at the local Giant Eagle supermarket. I enjoy walking around the store, which is huge, checking out the almost unbelievable variety of products available in virtually every category of grocery. There is an entire aisle–50 to 60 feet of […]
Why Are We in Such a Hurry to Make Up Our Minds??
Perhaps you’ve wondered: Why did banks and traders make such bad decisions leading up to and during the 2007-2008 financial crisis? Frank Portnoy [a former derivatives trader and current professor of law and finance at the University of San Diego] , was apparently wondering the same thing. In Professor Portnoy’s case, it led to the writing […]