Decision Multiverse Flashcards
What is the paradox of experience ?
Experience is necessary for learning, but “individual experiences” often interfere with learning.
This is partly because of the biases that cause us to overfit outcomes and decision quality.
What can resolve the paradox of experience ?
Viewing the outcome that occurred in the context of other potential outcomes at the time of the decision.
There are many possible futures but only one past. Because of this, the past feels inevitable.
Re-creating a simplified version of a decision tree puts the actual outcome in its proper context.
What is counterfactual thinking ?
Exploring the other possible outcomes is a form of counterfactual thinking.
A counterfactual is something that relates to an outcome that has not happened but could have happened, or an imagined state of the world.
Why is our willingness to examine outcomes is asymmetrical ?
We are more eager to put bad outcomes in context than good ones.
Becoming a better decision-maker requires us to try (difficult though it may be) to put those good outcomes in perspective.
