EFTA00980980.pdf

From: Joi Ito cal > To: Jeffrey Epstein <[email protected]> Cc: Subject: Re: Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 17:57:08 +0000 Thanks Jeffrey. Jeffrey was talking about you in the context of Bounded Rationality which relates to an ongoing conversation I've been having with him. I was digging through old email and I found the following. Now that I'm at MIT, I'd love to reconnect and see how your thoughts have evolved in the last decade and share some of my thoughts. - Joi On Mar 23, 2004, at 9:53 PM, wrote: > Dear Joi, > Unsurprisingly, it has taken me a long time to try to construct > a more precise model of tradeoffs between money, energy, information, > love, etc. (Unfortunately, I have lots of work to do for my day job.) > Here you go, though. Much of this will be impressionistic. I'll > flag with a * the things that are mathematically precise or can > be made so (I won't put in any math, though!). > I would like to make more precise the part of > our conversation that had to do with narrative. You made the point > that classical economics is based on a rather bald and unconvincing > narrative (to paraphrase Bertie Wooster) that the only thing that is > good is money, and the only thing better than money is more money. > Only a very few obsessed people operate with this principle as the sole > basis for their narrative, however. Most folks construct a narrative on > which to base their behavior out of a variety of different principles and > 'sub-narratives.' (Mind you, I'm a little uncomfortable with the word > 'narrative' itself: I may have mentioned to you during our conversation > that I was negatively impressed with a remark that Edward Said once made > to the effect that 'The problem of the Palestinian people is that they > don't have a narrative.' Perhaps more to the point, they don't have > food or land or schools.) > But the stories we tell ourselves do form the basis for the > decisions we make: this is where classical economists fall down in > thinking that decisions are made with only money in mind. And in fact, > if we look upon narratives as the basis for the thought process behind > the making decisions, then there is quite a lot of mathematically > precise stuff that can be said about them. > Suppose that someone (a person, a dog, a computer) is faced > with a yes-no question: Do I buy this suit? Do I pee on the rug? > Do I crash? (I'll let you decide who asks which question.) To > make any such decision requires weighing a number of factors, or inputs, > in the process of making the final decision. For example, I need a suit, > but I don't have much money this month; I like dark suits and this is on EFTA00980980 > the light side; on the other hand, the geometric pattern is great; such > a suit is unlikely to show up again. Or: I really need to pee, but I'll > get in big trouble if I do it on the rug. Or: I am overwhelmed with > conflicting requirements and many tasks to be performed simultaneously; > is there a way I can find to schedule them, or not? > One can think of the reasoning process that goes into > attempting to make a decision as the process of constructing a > reasonable narrative whose conclusion is the result of the decision. > (E.g., I can't make it outside in time, so the rug it is.) > From the perspective of the person making the decision, the conclusion > to the narrative (the yes or no) is not determined until the narrative > itself has been constructed. (From the perspective of someone else, > of course, the narrative may have a foregone conclusion. That damn dog: > it always leaves it until too late. Stupid computer! Seth is incapable > of buying a suit.) > This feature --- the being that makes a decision can not in general > know the answer beforehand --- is a reflection of a mathematical fact: > * no physical system, whether human, computer, or dog, can model its own > full behavior any faster than the behavior itself. One can construct > fragmentary, incomplete models of oneself that capture some aspect of > one's behavior. But to construct a full model of oneself requires at > least as many physical resources (atoms, energy, time) as one possesses. > In other words, the only complete model one can make of oneself > is oneself itself. > This self-referential conclusion is the basis for > a number of famous mathematical theorems, including Goedel's > incompleteness theorem and the halting problem. But its primary > expression in everyday life is the undecidability of decisions > before they are made. > What does this have to do with the existence of conflicting > narratives? Well, one of the main reasons that a classical economist > makes a highly oversimplified model of human behavior is to render > that behavior predictable within the model. Once one takes into account > love, religion, a sense of duty, sheer orneriness, and the rest of > the sub-narratives and features of human existence out of which we > construct our behavior and which form the basis for our decisions, > then not only can we not predict what we're going to do, we can > predict hardly any human behavior at all. > Indeed, I think that it can probably be established mathematically > that *any theory that is sufficiently simple to allow the easy prediction > of human (or animal, or computer) behavior, is too simple to be predict > that behavior correctly; and *any theory that allows the correct > prediction of behavior is sufficiently complex that its predictions > cannot be evaluated in a closed form. This is basically a consequence > of Goedel's theorem: mathematical theories have a threshold of complexity; > once you're above the threshold, the theory contains statements that are true > but cannot be proved to be true, statements that are false but cannot > be proved to be false, and statements that can be taken equally to > be true or false, with no proof either way. > In the case of human behavior, this intrinsic undecidability > arises from the construction of narratives out of a variety of different > subnarratives and inputs; many possible self-consistent narratives can > be constructed from what one knows and what one believes. But these > different narratives, though each internally self-consistent, need EFTA00980981 > not be consistent with each other. Indeed, the different possible > narratives thus constructed can wildly contradict eachother and lead > to radically different conclusions. > OK, that's probably enough abuse of mathematics in the service > or disservice of social observation for today. I hope that you are > doing well and look forward to having lunch again one of these days. > Yours, > Seth On Jan 3, 2014, at 02:50 , Jeffrey Epstein <[email protected]> wrote: > seth joi, i think you two will like each other > > The information contained in this communication is > confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may > constitute inside information, and is intended only for > the use of the addressee. It is the property of > Jeffrey Epstein > Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this > communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited > and may be unlawful. If you have received this > communication in error, please notify us immediately by > return e-mail or by e-mail to [email protected], and > destroy this communication and all copies thereof, > including all attachments. copyright -all rights reserved > seth , Please use my alternative address, to avoid email auto responder EFTA00980982