conclusion - decision/action model for soccer - boyd's snowmobiles - analysis & synthesis

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A Decision/Action Model for Soccer – Pt. 14 ConclusionWinning with resilient, fast-and-frugal models

Analysis and Synthesis in OrientationBoyd’s Snowmobiles

“To flourish and grow in a many-sided, uncertain, and ever changing world that surrounds us suggests that we have to make intuitive within ourselves those many practices we need to meet the exigencies of that world.”John Boyd, A Discourse on Winning and Losing

“Nothing is permanent except change.”Heraclitus

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John Boyd on DoctrineReified conceptual models = doctrine

“So what I tell people… look at a whole bunch of other doctrines… learn those too. Then you got a bunch of doctrines. The reason you want to learn them all, then you’re not captured by any one… you can play the snowmobile game and you can do better than anybody else. Cause if you got one doctrine, you’re a dinosaur.”[John Boyd, On Doctrine, YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heWpHSOMAmY]

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Destruction & Creation – abridgedAnalysis, synthesis and goal driven behavior

“To comprehend and cope with our environment we develop mental patterns or concepts of meaning. The purpose of this paper is to sketch out how we destroy and create these patterns to permit us to both shape and be shaped by a changing environment. In this sense, the discussion also literally shows why we cannot avoid this kind of activity if we intend to survive on our own terms.

The activity is dialectic in nature generating both disorder and order that emerges as a changing and expanding universe of mental concepts matched to a changing and expanding universe of observed reality.” [5]

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“Studies of human behavior reveal that the actions we undertake as individuals Are closely related to survival, more importantly, survival on our own terms. Naturally, such a notion implies that we should be able to act relatively free or independent of any debilitating external influences—otherwise that verysurvival might be in jeopardy. In viewing the instinct for survival in this manner we imply that a basic aim or goal, as individuals, is to improve our capacity for independent action.” [5]

“The degree to which we cooperate, or compete, with others is driven by the need to satisfy this basic goal. If we believe that it is not possible to satisfy it alone… we will agree to constraints upon our independent action—in order to collectively pool skills and talents so that obstacles… can either be removed or overcome…” [5]

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“In a real world of limited resources and skills, individuals and groups form, dissolve and reform their cooperative or competitive postures in a continuous struggle to remove or overcome physical and social environmental obstacles… Naturally, such a combination of real world scarcity and goal striving to overcome this scarcityintensifies the struggle of individuals and groups to cope with both their physical and social environments.”

“Against such a background, actions and decisions become critically important. Actions must be taken over and over again and in many different ways. Decisions must be rendered to monitor and determine the precise nature of the actions needed that will be compatible with the goal. To make these timely decisions implies that we must be able to form mental concepts of observed reality, as we perceive it, and be able to change these concepts as reality itself appears to change. The concepts can then be used as decision models for improving our capacity for independent action. Such a demand for decisions that literally impact our survival causes one to wonder: How do we generate or create the mental concepts to support this decision-making activity?”[5]

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“There are two ways in which we can develop and manipulate mental concepts to represent observed reality: we can start from a comprehensive whole and break it down to its particulars or we can start with the particulars and build towards a comprehensive whole. Saying it another way, but in a related sense, we can go from the general-to-specific or from the specific-to-general…

Summing up, we can see that: general-to-specific is related to deduction, analysis, and differentiation, while, specific-to-general is related to induction, synthesis, and integration.” [5]

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“Now keeping these two opposing idea chains in mind let us move on a somewhat different tack. Imagine, if you will, a domain (a comprehensive whole) and its constituentelements or parts. Now, imagine another domain and its constituent parts… Repeating this idea over and over again we can imagine any number of domains and the parts corresponding to each… suppose we shatter the correspondence of each domain or concept with its constituent elements… Result: We have many constituents, or particulars, swimming around in a sea of anarchy. We have uncertainty and disorder in place of meaning and order.” [5]

“Faced with such disorder or chaos, how can we reconstruct order and meaning? Going back to the idea chain of specific-to-general, induction, synthesis, and integration, the thought occurs that a new domain or concept can be formed if we can find some common qualities, attributes, or operations among some or many of these constituents swimming in this sea of anarchy. Through such connecting threads (that produce meaning) we synthesize constituents from, hence across, the domains we have just shattered.” [5]

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“Linking, particulars together in this manner we can form a new domain or concept—providing, of course, we do not inadvertently use only those "bits and pieces" in the same arrangement that we associated with one of the domains purged from our imagination. Clearly, such a synthesis would indicatewe have generated something new and different from what previously existed.Going back to our idea chain, it follows that creativity is related to induction, synthesis, and integration since we proceeded from unstructured bits and pieces to a new general pattern or concept… It is important to note that the crucial or key step that permits this creative induction is the separation of the particulars from their previous domains by the destructive deduction. Without this unstructuring the creation of a new structure cannot proceed—since the bits and pieces are still tied together as meaning within unchallenged domains or concepts.” [5]

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“Recalling that we use concepts or mental patterns to represent reality, it follows that the unstructuring and restructuring just shown reveals a way of changing our perception of reality. Naturally, such a notion implies that the emerging pattern of ideas and interactions must be internally consistent and match up with reality.”

“When this orderly (and pleasant) state is reached the concept becomes a coherent pattern of ideas and interactions that can be used to describe someaspect of observed reality. As a consequence, there is little or no further appeal to alternative ideas and interactions in an effort to either expand, complete, or modifythe concept. Instead, the effort turned inward towards fine tuning the ideas and interactions in order to improve generality and produce a more precise match of the conceptual pattern with reality. Toward this end, the concept—and its internal workings—is tested against observed phenomena over and over again in manydifferent and subtle ways. Such a repeated and inward-oriented effort to explain increasingly more subtle aspects of reality suggests the disturbing idea that perhaps, at some point, ambiguities, uncertainties, anomalies, or apparent inconsistencies may emerge to stifle a more general and precise match-up of concept with observed reality.” [5]

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Conceptual SpiralGenerating novelty, essential for survival and growth

“If we reverse direction and reexamine where we have been, we can see that without the intuitive interplay of analyses and synthesis, we have no basic process for generating novelty, no basic process for addressing mismatches between our mental images/impressions and the reality it is supposed to represent, and no basic process for reshaping our orientation toward that reality as it undergoes change…

Raises Question

What bearing does all this have on Winning and Losing?” [4]

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“Novelty is not only produced by the practice of [coaching and playing-me]… it is also produced by the forces of nature, by our own thinking and doing as well as by others. Furthermore, novelty is produced continuously, if somewhat erratically or haphazardly. Now, in order to thrive and grow in such a world, we must match our thinking and doing, hence our orientation, with that emerging novelty. Yet, any orientation constrained by experiences before that novelty emerges… introduces mismatches that confuse or disorient us. However, the analytical/synthetic process, previously described, permits us to address these mismatches so that we can rematch thereby reorient our thinking and action with that novelty. Over and over, this continuing whirl of reorientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis enables us to comprehend, cope with, and shape as well as be shaped by the novelty that literally flows around and over us.” [4]

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“Maybe So

Yet, upon reflection, we still have a puzzle: Why does our world continue to unfold in an irregular, disorderly, unpredictable manner, even though some of our best minds try to represent it as being more regular, orderly, and predictable?

More Pointedly

With so much effort over such a long period by so many people to comprehend, shape, and adapt to a world that we depend upon for vitality and growth, why does such a world, although richer and more robust, continue to remain uncertain, ever-changing, and unpredictable?” [4]

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“Response

Very simply, review of "Destruction and Creation," this presentation, and our own experiences reveal that the various theories, systems, processes, etc. that we employ to make sense of that world contain features that generate mismatches that, in turn, keep such a world uncertain, ever-changing, and unpredictable.

These Features Include

Uncertainty, Numerical imprecision, Quantum uncertainty, Entropy increase,Irregular and erratic behavior, Incomprehensibility, Mutations, Ambiguity, Novelty.” [4]

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“Underlying Message

There is no way out, unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don't know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis over and over again ad infinitum as a basis to comprehend, shape, and adapt to an unfolding, evolving reality that remains uncertain, ever-changing, unpredictable.” [4]

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“Now

If we connect this continuing whirl of reorientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis and the novelty that arises out of it with the previous discussion we can see that we have:

A conceptual spiral for

Exploration, Discovery, Innovation, Thinking, Doing, Achieving, Learning, Unlearning, Relearning, Comprehending, Shaping, Adapting

Hence, a conceptual spiral for generating

Insight – Imagination – Initiative” [4]

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“Which Raises the Question

Can we survive and grow without these abilities?

No!Which Suggests

The conceptual spiral also represents: A Paradigm for Survival and Growth” [4]

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“Point

Since survival and growth are directly connected with the uncertain, ever-changing, unpredictable world of winning and losing, we will exploit this whirling (conceptual) spiral of orientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis, reorientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis … so that we can comprehend, cope with, and shape—as well as be shaped by—that world and the novelty that arises out or it.” [4]

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Analysis & synthesis inside OrientationWorking with domains and constituent parts

The diagram shows where analysis and synthesis fits into the decision/action model, Boyd’s OODA loop. It shapes, and is shaped by the feed forward and feedback from genetic heritage, cultural traditions, previous experience and new information. Note; without the ability to unstructure and restructure signals, models and information in a timely fashion the chances of survival in an adversarial environment diminish. Both the inward focus to fine tune concepts-(sensitivity), and the linking of related particulars in a novel way-(creativity) is impaired. Removing analysis and synthesis leaves you with accepting information at a literal level, the road to cultural dogma, group think and systemic failure. Orientation, as a shaping tool ceases to function leaving chance as the only path for creating novel actions.

Wikipedia

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Boosting the Decision/action modelSimon’s Scissors, a picture of ecological decision-making

“Herbert Simon provided the metaphor of a pair of scissors for thinking about rational behavior: one blade has to do with the psychology of the organism and the other with the structure of the environment… Attempts to model just one blade of the scissors simply will not cut it.” [13]

Small world, closed systems, known results.

Large world, open systems, uncertain information.

“Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.” Sun-Tzu

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Boosting the Decision/action modelThe ambiguity of cause and effect

“What I see depends heavily on what direction some set of muscles turns my head, and in what direction some other set turns my eyes. Sensory activity depending on motor activity. A loud noise off to my left will result in an almost automatic turning of my head to the left. Motor activity depending on sensory activity. Sensorimotor activity, the essence of structural couplings, cannot be easily teased into two. Also, sensing and acting are not easily disentangled from cognition. All three are intricately interwoven.” [10]

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Boosting the Decision/action model The Nature of Resilience

“The mode of resilience is based on the assumption that unexpected trouble is ubiquitous and unpredictable; and thus accurate advance information on how to get out of it is in short supply. To Learn from error (as opposed to avoiding error altogether) and to implement that learning through fast negative feedback, which dampens oscillations, are at the forefront of operating resiliently. Resilient people think mitigation rather than anticipation… Resilience occurs when the system continues to operate despite failures in some of its parts.” [25]

“Components of Resilience

The ability to absorb strain and preserve functioning despite the presence of adversity.An ability to recover or bounce back from untoward events… The system can stretch rather than collapse.An ability to learn and grow from previous episodes of resilient action.” [25]

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Boosting the Decision/action model Modeling fast and frugal

Outline

Fast – the process has few steps. Time is relative to the environmental situation. The strategic/operational/tactical dilemma.

Frugal – small computational demands. KISS principle. [11,12,13]

Three simple rules

Simple search rules – what you’re looking for and where to look. Search for alternatives and cues. Dealing with noise and signals

Simple stopping rules – what feels right, gut feeling the selection. Rules can change due to length of search. The longer the search the simpler

the rule needs to be. One can change the rule when it feels right.Simple decision rules – “What do I do now?” [11,12,13]

“So long as victory can be attained, stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness.”Sun-Tzu. “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” George Patton.

These three rules are shaped by and shape the environment.

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Boosting the Decision/action modelThe nature of the current model, where we came from and use to think

Consciousness is the current model in use. It comes out of the past and contends with the future.

The current model is a continuation of past models. One can’t get here without coming through there. It carries historical baggage, a mixed blessing. Some piece of the past will provide a starting point for the next decision/action cycle.

The current model evolved to meet an environment which has or will pass. Being aware of its practical limits is vital. Such knowledge aids in avoiding its use beyond the original purpose. This includes understanding the general rules and laws that work beneath the surface of the model.

In Simons Scissors, the current model is found at the tearing edge* between cognition and the environment. Since the blades are always in motion, and the goals in flux, its an interval, not an instantaneous point between the past and the future.

*Tearing is a better metaphor then cutting. The separation between the future and the past is violent because of uncertainty and friction. The competition between concepts leaves threads, fragments, scraps, ragged edges. These are the winners and losers in the war between ideas. The winners get the spotlight of attention, the losers disappear backstage or into the crowd.

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Boosting the Decision/action modelOptions and constraints from the past and for the future

There are two ways to survive the end of the current models usefulness.

1. Update or renew it, a role for System 1. Training, preparation and experience refurbish or continue the action. Boyd’s “pleasant state” and Rao’s “liminal passage.” This process maintains the status quo by extending the current model or adding a similar, but different ‘whole’ concept to the current course of action.

2. Break from the current store of models. Nothing as a ‘whole’ in the ‘adaptive tool box’ will help, so System 2 comes to the rescue. One or more previously learned concepts has to be shattered and ‘some constituent elements’ are combined with ‘some constituent elements’ of the current model. Analysis and synthesis creates a novel idea.

Both processes face a significant time constraint, other people. Opponents and team mates are involved and their actions shape and are shaped by yours. Friction, the human element is always in play. Dealing with it requires ‘fingerspitzengefühl.’ The gut feelings of empathy honed under the stress of competition and hardened through reflection.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” Sun-Tzu

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Boosting the Decision/action modelIncreasing the pool of conceptual models

Embrace redundant systems and models. By including models from other fields like the military, Artificial Intelligence, economics and emergency response the number of potential connections through synthesis increases dramatically. This approach encourages “intersectional ideas,” leaps of imagination as opposed to the grind of progress.

“If you operate within a field, you primarily are able to combine concepts within that particular field, generating ideas along a particular direction-what I call directional ideas [here=System1]. When you step into the Intersection, you can combine concepts between multiple fields, generating ideas that leap in new directions-what I call intersectional ideas [here=System 2].” [14]

For every model there’s one that counters it; two sides to every story. Using the ‘other’ model or a part is a fast way to generate negative feedback. The autonomic nervous system demonstrates the effectiveness of this simple idea. Multiple systems harmonize using simple rules; add-subtract, amplify-dampen, expand-contract, constrict-dialate. A side becomes wrong when its overused. Learn both sides of lifes Deep Stories. Use opposing rhetorics when necessary.

“Whether in an advantageous position or a disadvantageous one, the opposite state should be always present to your mind.” Sun-Tzu

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Boosting the Decision/action modelThree models that enable quick, flexible connections – rapid analysis & synthesis

1. Bongaardt’s shifting focus heuristic; “A shifting focus heuristic is defined as the alternation between different theories, methods, models, or scales of analysis that exclude each other.” [2,3]

2. Karl Weick’s; “loose coupling in Weick's sense is a term intended to capture the necessary degree of flex between an organization's internal abstraction of reality, its theory of the world, on the one hand, and the concrete material actuality within which it finally acts, on the other. A loose coupling is what makes it possible for these ontologically incompatible entities to exist and act on each other, without shattering.” [Wikipedia, 25]

3. Karl Popper’s Of Clouds and Clocks; “My clouds are intended to represent physical systems which, like gases, are highly irregular, disorderly, and more or less unpredictable. I shall assume that we have before us a schema or arrangement in which a very disturbed or disorderly cloud is placed on the left. On the other extreme of our arrangement, on its right, we may place a very reliable pendulum clock, a precision clock, intended to represent physical systems which are regular, orderly, and highly predictable in their behaviour.”[19]

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Selected references

1. BERTALANFFY, L. 1969, General System Theory, Foundations, Development, Applications (New York: GeorgeBraziller, Inc).

2. BONGAARDT, R. 1996, Shifting Focus, The Bernstein Tradition in Movement Science (Amsterdam: Druk 80).3. BONGAARDT, R. PICKENHAIN, L MEIJER, O. 2000, Bernstein’s Anti-Reductionist Materialism: On the Road Towards

a Biology of Activity (1965) (Motor Control, 2000, 4, 377-406).4. BOYD, J. 2011, Conceptual Spiral (http://pogoarchives.org/m/dni/john_boyd_compendium/conceptual-spiral-

20111100.pdf).5. BOYD, J. 1976, Destruction and Creation

(http://pogoarchives.org/m/dni/john_boyd_compendium/destruction_and_creation.pdf)6. BOYD, J. 2007, Patterns of Conflict (http://www.dnipogo.org/boyd/patterns_ppt.pdf)7. BOYD, J. 2007, Patterns of Conflict (http://www.dnipogo.org/boyd/patterns_ppt.pdf)8. BOYD, J. 2010, The Essence of Winning and Losing9. (http://pogoarchives.org/m/dni/john_boyd_compendium/essence_of_winning_losing.pdf).10. FRANKLIN, S. 1997, Artificial Minds (London, England: Bradford Book). 11. GIGERENZER, G. GAISSMAIER, W. 2011 Heuristic Decision Making (Annual Review Psychology, 62:451-482). 12. GIGERENZER, G. GOLDSTEIN, D. 1996, Reasoning the Fast and Frugal Way: Models of Bounded Rationality

(Psychological Review, Vol. 103, No. 4, 650-669).13. GIGERENZER, G. 2001, Bounded Rationality, The Adaptive Toolbox – Gigernezer & Selten Editors (Cambridge Ma:

MIT Press) 14. JOHANSSON, F. 2004, The Medici Effect, Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts & Cultures

(Boston, Ma: Harvard Business School Press). 15. KLEIN, G. 1998, Sources of Power, How People Make Decisions (Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press).16. KUHN, T.S. 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).17. MEIJER, O. BONGAARDT, R. 1998, Bernsteins Last Paper: The Immediate Tasks of Neurophysiology in the Light of

the Modern Theory of Biological Activity (Motor Control, 1998, 2. 2-9).

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Selected references

18. MITCHELL, M. 2009, Complexity, A Guided Tour (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press).19. POPPER, K. May 2014, Of Clouds and Clocks, An Approach to the Problem of Rationality and the Freedom of

Man (http://www.the-rathouse.com/2011/Clouds-and-Clocks.html) 20. PRIGOGINE, I. 1996, The End of Certainty, Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature (New York: The Free

Press). 21. STANTON, N. et al. 2006, Distributed situation awareness in dynamic systems: theoretical development and

application of an ergonomics methodology (Ergonomics, Vol.49, Nos. 12-13, 1288-1311). 22. WALKER, G. STANTON, N. JENKINS, D. & YOUNG, M. 2010, A Human Factors Approach to Analysing Military

Command and Control (http://www.dodccrp.org/events/11th_ICCRTS/html/papers/022.pdf). 23. WEICK, K. 2007, The Generative Properties of Richness (Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 50, No. 1, 14-

19). 24. WEICK, K. SUTCLIFFE, K. 2005, Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking (Organizational Science, Vol. 16,

No. 4, 409-421). 25. WEICK, K. SUTCLIFFE, K. 2007, Managing the Unexpected, Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty, (San

Francisco, Ca: John Wiley & Sons, Inc).

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Thank you“I’ll live or die by my own ideas.” Johan Cruyff

Presentation created May, 2014 by Larry Paul, Peoria Arizona.All references are available as stated.All content is the responsibility of the author.For further information, questions or to inquire how to arrange a workshop on this topic you can contact me at [email protected], subject line; decision/action model.

conclusion - decision/action model for soccer - boyd's snowmobiles - analysis & synthesis

Education

basic goal

universe of mental concepts

concepts of meaning

frugal models analysis

mental patterns

struggle of individuals

john boyd

constituent parts