Decision Tools

Notes on software and processes for collecting, analyzing and acting on data

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Working Notes: Current Working Notes These notes are the contents of a whiteboard in Tinderbox that I'm using to map out my (more . . .)

Drawing the System Border: The brain is a complex network of neuronal connections, organized into ensembles and specialized regions. Conscious thought is an emergent (more . . .)

Telling Stories: Communicating knowledge about complex systems to others is a daunting task. A mental model of some kind exists within one (more . . .)

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Working Notes : Nothing New Here

There are no new discoveries or paradigms on this site. It's a public notebook that's a product of my investigations into decision and systems theory. The subject matter reflects both my personal concerns and reactions to literature, both on the web and published in book form.

A theme has emerged over time, however. I've been exploring the interface between the cognitive experience of deciding with the realities of the material world. It's been a central set of questions for philosophy and religion for centuries. I see an essential unity between the spiritual and material that is too often ignored by those who advocate living in one realm or the other. As a neurologist, neuroscientist and, most recently, drug developer, this intersection of mind and brain has been central to my thinking for a long time.

I was encouraged to read that the subtitle of William James' seminal work "Pragmatism" was "A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking." I too have nothing terribly original to write here. But if philosophy is personal and autobiographical, there are few, if any other Orthodox Jewish MD PhD Neurologist drug developers that have approached basic questions of existence, knowledge and deciding. And probably not so far in the 21st Century.

I'll assume that in and of itself, writing about Decision Theory, Systems Theory, and Philosophy will be a worthwhile endeavor.

Perhaps in the tradition of William James, who also was a neuroscientist and philosopher, I can synthesize some ideas that will of practical value to those who would make choices under conditions of uncertainty and try to influence complex situations where simple cause and effect seem to apply loosely, if at all.