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From: sena@infinet.UUCP (Fred Sena)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Metaphors, Information and War
Keywords: metaphor, analogy
Message-ID: <2761@infinet.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jan 91 23:39:50 GMT
References: <801@keele.keele.ac.uk> <802@keele.keele.ac.uk> <1991Jan12.035939.4706@athena.cs.uga.edu> <1991Jan15.202949.28173@mcs.anl.gov>
Reply-To: sena@infinet.UUCP (Fred Sena)
Organization: Infinet, Inc.  North Andover, MA
Lines: 42

In article <1991Jan15.202949.28173@mcs.anl.gov> kazic@valanor.mcs.anl.gov
> (Toni Kazic) writes:
>I suggest one metaphor is that of dealing with an extended family (of adults,
>of differing abilities but all intellectually sound).  We do sometimes seek to
>"punish" family members, particularly in cases of abuse, but usually these
>desires stem from our own insecurities and interfere with conflict resolution.

I strongly agree with this.  On the metaphorical level, we react to each
person that we encounter based on our internal representation of them, or how
we perceive them, based on various criteria of our experience and our fears
(...of the unknown, non-experience).

When we "attack" someone, we are metaphorically or symbollically (which?)
attacking that part of ourselves.  I suppose that you could say that the
internal conflict is being expressed through the conflict.  Like when we
dream "about someone", we may actually be seeing the part of ourselves that
the person represents, and not really be dreaming about that person at all as
far as how they are in "real" life.

>
>	What effect does concentrating decision-making into a small group have
>on the quality of decisions? 

I once took a course on human development or psychology which talked about
this.  It seemed to me that the conclusion was that when decisions are left up
to a group instead of an individual, they tend to be lower quality.  (I
suppose it depends on the group though, and how well they interact with one
another.)  The reason a group may not make as "good" a decision is that in a
group there is less of a sense of responsiblity by each member for the
outcome of a decision.  In other words, finger pointing can be used for self
justification.  Also, I think that groups tend to get into a sort of "mob
mentality", where people may go along against their intuitive feelings that a
decision may not be good as far as they are concerned.  Has anyone else been
on a project using the "design by committee" method?  It is probably good
for an individual making a decision to consult with a group before making the
decision, but then proceed to take complete responsibility for the decision.

	--fred
-- 
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Frederick J. Sena                sena@infinet.UUCP
Memotec Datacom, Inc.  N. Andover, MA