[quote=CONCHO]The unofficial poet laureate of the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld, wrote a stirring piece on this very idea in 2002:
The Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld (2002)
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
I have always been a fan of Don Rumsfeld’s poetry. If the English language still exists 500 years from now, people will still be studying his poems. In addition to his work with the English language, he has also been a pioneer in the field of martial arts and has developed a variety of innovative fighting techniques.[/quote]
CONCHO,
I think that Rumsfeld was well aware of the concept of Bounded Rationality.
I find myself confronting this concept on a daily basis not only in the workplace but with what HDTV or digital camera to buy. I can’t stand the idea of satisficing! If I read the discussion forums long enough to make a choice a new model will be released.
The key to understanding the concept just as in the NYT piece is recognizing that there is not possible way to fully understand each possible situation that we are presented in life. Most of society refuses to accept this possibility in my belief because it involves admitting that we are not always in full control of our lives.
From Wikipedia:
Bounded rationality is a concept based on the fact that rationality of individuals is limited by the information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds, and the finite amount of time they have to make decisions. This identifies the concept of rationality as optimization. Another way to look at bounded rationality is that, because decision-makers lack the ability and resources to arrive at the optimal solution, they instead apply their rationality only after having greatly simplified the choices available. Thus the decision-maker is a satisficer, one seeking a satisfactory solution rather than the optimal one.
