The Foundation of Good Decisions

What is my purpose for exploring perception and cognition in recent past newsletters? I find it fascinating how many different ways we fool ourselves without noticing. I'm not interested, though, in studying deeply how physics and our physiology team up to fool us. I'm just an amateur deepening my awareness of it, and the consequences of that.

Why does all this about perception and cognition matter?

How can I be certain of what I think is true if I can't even be certain of what I think I saw? Add on top of that any errors of inference I might make, and any subconscious biases in my reasoning. The confidence of humans is often on shaky grounds.

Understanding the limits of perception and the biases of cognition makes us less certain that we know THE answer. I've long noticed that I have an allergy to the word THE. When I hear "the answer," "the cause," or "the problem," I get itchy. I mentally substitute "an answer," "a cause," and "a problem." From there I might go to "a potential answer," "a contributing factor," and "a difficulty or dilemma." These don't close the door to learning more and enhancing my understanding of the situation.

I make my uncertainty more explicit. In doing so, I can explore where the holes in my understanding or reasoning might lie. I can test that understanding by approaching it from different directions. I can try out alternatives for comparison. The more independent evidence for my understanding, the more likely that I can safely trust that it is relatively true--true enough to make decisions based on it.

Uncertainty about my perception and knowledge makes me aware of my freedom in my choices--I am less constrained by the expectations of my mindset and the habits of past behavior. I can choose to discount those expectations and habits.

Being uncertain helps me become more aware of the existence of alternative possibilities, both in my understanding of the current situation and my choices in those circumstances. That awareness opens the door to freedom.

Uncertainty helps me to realize that the only thing I cannot choose is to not have a choice, for that would be self-refuting. The choice to not choose is, itself, a choice.

People often say they didn't have a choice. What they really mean is that they didn't perceive a choice that they liked. Perhaps they're hungry and broke, so they steal some food from the grocery store. "I didn't have a choice; the alternative was to starve." Such dichotomous thinking limits our view to the choice we've chosen and another option that makes it look good in comparison.

As Virginia Satir put it, "to have one choice is no choice; to have two choices is a dilemma; and to have three choices offers new possibilities."¹ Is there an option between the two that have been identified? Perhaps I could ask the store to give me some food, or ask a customer to buy it for me.

I've often found that when I think of a third option, then I think of many others in quick succession. Perhaps I could forage for food. Is there a fruit tree nearby? Or edible flowers such as day lilies? I've found edible but cosmetically unsalable food being discarded. The possibilities are not only not restricted to a binary choice, but not restricted to a single continuum. There are possibilities in all directions.

It's important to realize that freedom of choice is not the same thing as liberty. Liberty is a political term indicating absence of oppression. As Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block put it, "Often what makes it difficult to realize that all acts are free choices is that frequently all the alternatives open are unpleasant and painful."² They point out that the ability to choose not only gives us freedom, but because we could have chosen differently makes us accountable for those choices. The notion that we are the origin of the consequences of our choices universally creates anxiety, but choose, we must.

Psychologist William Glasser reaches some similar conclusions about freedom and responsibility coming from the point of view of a therapist. He said, "Choice theory explains that, for all practical purposes, we choose everything we do, including the misery we feel. Other people can neither make us miserable nor make us happy."³ The implication is that if we can choose to be miserable and behave in ways that reinforce that misery, we can also choose to be happy and behave in other ways to support that happiness.

Note that Glasser says we choose our behavior, not the context that surrounds us. We have to take that context as a given unless our behavior can modify it. Virginia Satir similarly tells us to mind the needs of our context, as well as the needs of the other person and our own needs.

Underlying these choices remains the bedrock our perceptions and interpretation of those perceptions. That's what we, at the moment, know about our world. We must make the best decisions we can with what we have.

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