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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: ANS FORTH TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
Message-ID: <2294.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 30 Jan 91 12:14:24 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 44

Category 10,  Topic 2
Message 293       Mon Jan 28, 1991
L.ZETTEL                     at 20:27 EST
 
This is a reply to Brad's message 250.  There was a time when I espoused what
might be called a deductivist approach to decision making and issue
resolution.  That is, determine the correct general principles, determine the
relationship of the specific situation to the general principles, and deduce
the proper decision.  To persuade someone else, outline the details of the
above exercise to them.
     Now I am older and have engaged in serious committee work and have
concluded the above scheme is utterly unworkable.  First, it is just about
impossible to get agreement on general principles with any more substance than
"motherhood and the flag" and even then there are issues of "which flag?" and
"what about the population explosion?"  Second, it is even harder to get
agreement about how principles properly apply in a given situation. 
    So now I like an "inductivist" approach.  Look at a bunch of specific
situations and see what regularities might be distilled into a general rule of
action.  However, remember that induction other than mathematical induction is
always fallible.  You never know whether the the induced rule will apply to
the next case or whether that case will force an exception or revision of the
rule.  Given that fallibility, I refuse to agree irrevocably in advance to
apply a general rule to a case I have not yet seen.  I am also reluctant to
invest time and energy arguing general criteria when I can see no practical
end which that will further.
    Further, in something as complicated as the standard there are always
competing goods to be obtained, or criteria to be evaluated.  And the weights
change from case to case (importance or degree of fulfillment or both).  It
then becomes perfectly reasonable to adopt some specific point because it
fulfills some specific criterion and reject another even though it fulfills
the same criterion - the rejectee had other arguments against it.
    Then there are the various forms of committee paradox we have to tame.  It
is perfectly possible for a committee of rational and consistent members to
vote for A over B, B over C, and C over A (see the works of Kenneth Arrow). If
nothing else, this gives fertile fields for parliamentary maneuvering, and we
haven't been entirely immune to that.
    The committee isn't trying to agree on general principles - it is trying
to agree on a standard.  Fortunately, we have found much we can agree on in
spite of our differences of principle.
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