Definition of Uncertainty

The latest paper, "Strategic Uncertainty and Incomplete Information: The Homo Heuristics Does Not Fold (L, Spiliopoulos and R, Hertwig)," citing "The interpretation of uncertainty in ecological rationality". From the philosophical journal SYNTHESIS.

Kozyreva, A. Hertwig, R.  The interpretation of uncertainty in ecological rationality. Shintese. 198, 2, 1517-1547. doi 10.1007/s11229-019-02140-w

The Introduction opens with a quote from the Roman philosopher Seneca.
“All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straightaway."
The first author is a specialist in philosophy, and until I read this paper, I had no idea that decision making was discussed in philosophy.

Here, he tries to define "What is Uncertainty? The author points out that how to understand uncertainty in decision making differs depending on the field of research (psychology, economics, mathematics, statistics, physics, philosophy, cognitive science, neuroscience, and neuropathology) and that no unified view has yet emerged.

The author begins by citing the famous classical theories of Simon (Herbert Simon, 1916-2001) and Brunswik (Egon Brunswik, 1903-1955). Simon questioned the traditional decision-making premise of perfect rationality and stressed the importance of considering imperfections.　

Simon, H. A. (1972). Theories of bounded rationality. Decision and Organization, 1(1), 161–176.

Later, in his book "The conceptual framework of psychology" (Brunswik, Egon. Midway reprint, 1979), Brunswik wrote that the environment and people are fundamentally separate, and that people make decisions by constantly guessing at the environment using uncertain cues. He also says that the environment and people are fundamentally separate, and that people make decisions by constantly guessing at the environment using uncertain clues. The decision-making model proposed by Brunswick is called the "lens model," which was originally a visual information processing model proposed by Brunswick and later used in decision making. So the visual information processing process can successfully represent a decision-making model.

Based on Simon and Brunswick's theory, the author treated the environment and people as a single entity, integrating the environment and people by stating that "the environment is the interaction between a person's perceptual response to the environment and the effect of that response on the environment. This concept is the novelty of the paper.

Furthermore, he suggested that we first distinguish between two types of uncertainty: (1) environmental contingency or lack of information and (2) limitation of human reasoning ability. If the environmental uncertainty is low, he recommends using empirical knowledge and expertise to deal with it; if the uncertainty is high, he recommends using a simple heuristic strategy, such as an "equal-weighting strategy.

In reading the book, I felt a strong biological approach in many parts, such as the use of the term "organism" to describe a person, rather than philosophy. Incidentally, in decision making, people are often described as "agents."