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Thinking and Writing: Cognitive Science and Intelligence Analysis , by Sinclair, CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, Feb 2010 revision of 1984 monograph We are, in fact, better at generating problems than at solving them. Rarely can we say unequivocally that we have solved a problem, particularly if it is a hard one. Rather we keep plugging away at it heuristically. Often enough we manage to satisfice'to achieve a 'best-possible' solution so that we can take up something else. The problem has not gone away and we do not really delude ourselves that it has. But being realists (i.e., heuristic individuals to the core), we accept the results and live with them'recognizing that sometime we may find ourselves returning to the problem once more. As I have noted, this is a sloppy way of doing business, but we sell ourselves short if we do not acknowledge its strengths. It deals as well as anything yet developed with the fact, to use Jerome Bruner's words, that our 'ability to deal with knowledge is hugely exceeded by the potential knowledge contained in man's environment.' |
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