perm filename MOTIVA[ESS,JMC] blob
sn#729837 filedate 1983-11-06 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ā VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002 Complexity of motivation and politics
C00004 ENDMK
Cā;
Complexity of motivation and politics
The world has too many aspects for a human to have a single
utility function that takes into account all aspects of the world.
Therefore we typically switch our attention over varying periods
among collections of aspects of the world. Our attention is often
switched by random events that make one or another aspect of the
world momentarily salient. The essence of politics is to make
salient those aspects of the world about which the electorate
can hope to benefit by giving the politician power.
Is there not a goal of having goals?
Besides complex goal-directed behavior, we also indulge
in reflexive behavior, but sometimes the reflex action is the
triggering of complex behavior.
Because we have such poor short term memories, we use the external
world for memory as much as possible. Thus we program ourselves
so that the next step in a complex behavior sequence is triggered
by the completion of the previous step - rather than being remembered
as the next step.
Under what conditions does optimizing a sequence of aspects of a situation
result in overall hill climbing?