A necessary condition of probability-based decision making and causal reasoning is that the probability of an event or outcome exists and can be known. However, in more broad circumstances such a condition cannot be met. For instance, in case to decide a strategy when both target and paths are unknown in a scientific discovery, to find ways in a new territory without a GPS, and to predict a singular event that will only occur once in the future.
A formal decision is a Cartesian product between a set of possible alternatives and a set of given strategies [Wang, 2007; Wang & Ruhe, 2007]. Whenever any of the sets is empty, there is no rational decision.
The question above presents a typical situation where decision makers would take intuitive strategies or wait and see.
This case indicates that probability theory would have been over used beyond its domain of definition for dealing with uncertainty in complex real-world problems.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Mathematics
- Statistics
- Probability
- Probability Theory