2.3. Curves and processes
К оглавлению1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1617 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67
68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94
A cost-benefit curve characterizes the trajectory of performance and so
allows you to predict it. At the same time, the fact that a line connects two
points does not necessarily imply that there are mechanisms determining
arbitrarily selected values on the line. If it did, a cardinality argument
could be constructed that there are infinitely many mechanisms, or that
the mechanisms that exist are infinitely sensitive. And this is not a general
assumption we would want to embrace. But we can very roughly represent
the reasoning strategy’s performance in terms of a smooth curve as long as
the curve is a product of documented performance or outcomes, and we
have no reason to think that the reasoning strategy would exhibit wildly
discontinuous performances on some task.
A cost-benefit curve characterizes the trajectory of performance and so
allows you to predict it. At the same time, the fact that a line connects two
points does not necessarily imply that there are mechanisms determining
arbitrarily selected values on the line. If it did, a cardinality argument
could be constructed that there are infinitely many mechanisms, or that
the mechanisms that exist are infinitely sensitive. And this is not a general
assumption we would want to embrace. But we can very roughly represent
the reasoning strategy’s performance in terms of a smooth curve as long as
the curve is a product of documented performance or outcomes, and we
have no reason to think that the reasoning strategy would exhibit wildly
discontinuous performances on some task.