Can we accelerate learning from history? South Africa then and now: Commentary on Schoemaker 2020

Tetlock, Philip E.

doi:10.1002/ffo2.38

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…By believing in free will as an indeterminable and irreducible part in the equation of worldly causes we have to accept that psychological foresight is not truly possible anymore. As shown in the review, this consequence is relevant for an abundance of scientific and applied fields concerned with human psychology, also central to the F&FS community -like organizational management (e.g., Derbyshire, 2021;Schoemaker, 2018;Karjalainen & Heineken, 2018), historic and strategic analysis (e.g., Schoemaker;Tetlock, 2020) and explicit prediction models (e.g., Popper, 2019;Fergnani & Chermack, 2020). Believing in free will is up to each individual's own discretion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Free will determines the limits of psychological foresight: Review of “Free Will” by Sam Harris

Grüning¹

2023

Preprint

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The existence of free will and its prerequisites have entertained countless debates. The position one takes in these debates dictates their outlook on limitations of knowledge. Like the majority of philosophers and researchers, Harris (2012), in his book, misses out on exploring the consequences accepting or rejecting free will has for the predictability of human psychology. In the present review, I show the following: If we understand and model human cognition and behavior as a result of environmental & individual causes that both are knowable, adding a per-definition indeterminable source, namely, free will, can only reduce the maximum power of our prediction model. That is, accepting a free human will renders impeccable foresight theoretically, and empirically, impossible. I situate its consequences in the three exemplary application fields of management and leadership, historic analysis, and theory building.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Free will determines the limits of psychological foresight: Review of “Free Will” by Sam Harris

Grüning¹

2023

Preprint

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“…He only briefly touches on the consequences that holding this or any other view on free will has for the predictability of human decisions and actions. By believing in free will as an indeterminable and irreducible part in the equation of 2021; Karjalainen & Heinonen, 2019;Schoemaker, 2019), historic (e.g., Schoemaker;Tetlock, 2020) and strategic analysis (Grüning & Krueger, 2022), and explicit prediction models (e.g., Fergnani & Chermack, 2020;Popper, 2019). For any resource management and business planning that involves human agents the formalization illustrates that assuming free will requires one's acceptance that, independent of the degree of detail and amount of resources deployed, an irreducible uncertainty is linked to any strategic decision.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By believing in free will as an indeterminable and irreducible part in the equation of worldly causes we have to accept that error‐free psychological foresight is not possible. The present review has formalized this insight and discussed its consequences for a range of scientific and applied fields central to the Futures and Foresight Science Community—like organizational management (e.g., Derbyshire, 2021; Karjalainen & Heinonen, 2019; Schoemaker, 2019), historic (e.g., Schoemaker; 2020; Tetlock, 2020) and strategic analysis (Grüning & Krueger, 2022), and explicit prediction models (e.g., Fergnani & Chermack, 2020; Popper, 2019). For any resource management and business planning that involves human agents the formalization illustrates that assuming free will requires one's acceptance that, independent of the degree of detail and amount of resources deployed, an irreducible uncertainty is linked to any strategic decision.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free will determines the limits of psychological foresight: Review of “Free Will” by Sam Harris

Grüning

2023

Futures & Foresight Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The existence of free will and its prerequisites have entertained countless debates. The position one takes in these debates dictates their outlook on limitations of predicting human psychology. Sam Harris (2012), in his book, misses out on exploring these consequences accepting or rejecting free will has for the predictability of human decision‐making and action‐taking. Likewise, referencers of his work addressed this topic only peripherally and, to the best of my knowledge, have never explored its consequences in depth. Therefore, in the present review, I aim to demonstrate and formalize the following: If we understand human cognition and behavior as the result of environmental and individual causes that both are knowable, adding a per definition indeterminable source, namely, free will, can only reduce the maximum possible power of any used prediction model. Accepting a free human will renders error‐free foresight theoretically, and empirically, impossible. This has consequences for all forecasting and planning methods that concern human agents as well as their tools’ utility (e.g., scenarios and psychological analysis). I address the consequences free will belief has conceptually for three application fields: management and leadership, historic analysis, and theory building.

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Can we accelerate learning from history? South Africa then and now: Commentary on Schoemaker 2020

Cited by 2 publications

References 7 publications

Free will determines the limits of psychological foresight: Review of “Free Will” by Sam Harris

Free will determines the limits of psychological foresight: Review of “Free Will” by Sam Harris

Free will determines the limits of psychological foresight: Review of “Free Will” by Sam Harris

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