Unpredictable karma

From An Alchemy of Mind by Diane Ackerman.

Reason and Logic seem perfectly, what's the word, . . . reasonable. But what does it mean to be logical and reasonable. Ackerman gives an example of how cultural wiring can influence understanding of communication. In this instance, providing a perfectly reasonable answer that is, none-the-less, because of differences in cultural expectations, quite unexpected.

The brain is not completely hardwired, though at times it may seem so. Someone once wisely observed that if one's only tool is a key, then every problem will seem to be a lock. Thus the brain analyzes as a way of life in Western cultures, abhors contradiction, honors formal logic, and abides by many rules. Reasoning we call it, as if it were a spice. Cuisine may be a good metaphor for the modishness and malleability of the the thinking brain. In some non-Western cultures the brain doesn't reason through logic but by relating things to the environment, in a process that includes contradiction, conflict, and the sudden appearance of random forces and events. The biologist Alexander Luria was struck by this when he interviewed Russian nomads in 1931. "All the bears up North are white," he said. "I have a friend up there who saw a bear. What color was the bear?" A nomad stared at him, puzzled: "How am I supposed to know? Ask your friend!" These are but two styles in the art of the brain. All people are alike enough to be recognizable, even predictable at times, yet everyone has a slightly different flavor of mind. Whole cultures do. Just different enough to keep things interesting, or, depending on your point of view, frightening.

This is one of those paradoxes that are hard to resolve because they involve trade-off goals.

If we want to move quickly to a constructive answer to an important question we have a contradiction between tactical efficiency and strategic effectiveness.

With the defined problem we are likely to get to a reasonable answer quickly as long as we have people with similar levels of intelligence, a common language, culture and religion, and common life experiences. All these things facilitate rapid and accurate communication that in turn facilitates resolution.

On the other hand, we know from the research of Tetlock and others, that homogenous teams are more likely to quickly reach an efficient answer but the more heterogenous teams reach more effective answers.

A team with differing levels of intelligence, life experience, language, culture, and religion are likely to expend time having to deal with 1) how to make a decision and 2) expend time resolving meanings, definitions and unstated assumptions. They spend much more time but by the time they get to a decision it is both more rigorously tested and more likely to be informed by a broader context. The outcome of their decision-making may not be efficient but it is more likely to be effective.

In stable environments, there is a tendency to favor the efficiency of homogenous teams. In complex dynamic environments the preference swings towards diverse teams. Both teams are good in their context, but which context is it that you are facing? That in turn is hard to know.

The turkey who is accustomed to thinking of the nice farmer as his friend because the farmer shelters, protects and feeds him, is in for a rude awakening when the context becomes less stable the day before Thanksgiving.

Making the decision on whether to use homogenous or diverse teams depends on whether you are focused on tactical efficiency or strategic effectiveness which in turn depends on whether you face a stable or dynamic context. Context is karma and karma is unpredictable.