[blml] Fect in the Laws

[Robert Frick]

Just a psychological point. There have been a many experiments showing  
that people do not and probably cannot report all of the factors  
influencing their decision. IMO, there is just too much that can be  
happening unconsciously.

For example, it takes considerable skill to say how you know something is  
a wall, or a bottle. (If you want to test this, ask people to define a  
bottle and see how many mention the bottleneck.)

Or, when people judge weight, they use size as a small cue but they don't  
do it on purpose and don't know they are doing it.

So Eric is not on solid ground if he means to claim that he can tell the  
opps all the factors that went into his decision. (And their weighting is  
not even communicable.)

Bob Frick (who is usually not fond of credentials but will mention just in  
case it is useful that he has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and has done  
published research on this topic)

> On Apr 9, 2008, at 11:49 AM, Herman De Wael wrote:
>
>> Eric Landau wrote:
>>
>>> On Apr 9, 2008, at 4:52 AM, Alain Gottcheiner wrote:
>>>
>>>> Notice that there is a subtle (4b) case : we agree that meta-
>>>> agreements
>>>> are in a way agreements and should be disclosed when they are at
>>>> work.
>>>> But there might be cases where meta-agreements contradict
>>>> eachother, so
>>>> that the meaning of the bid can't be defined. Both players will
>>>> have to
>>>> guess which meta-agreement takes precedence, and not all pairs have
>>>> such
>>>> meta-meta-agreements. In that case, "no agreement" might be a bit
>>>> short,
>>>> but "It's impossible to ascertain, because of conflict between
>>>> system
>>>> data" would contain UI. What's the right answer in that case ?
>>>
>>> Explain the (contradictory) meta-agreements in full.  You will have
>>> to decide which takes precedence and how they apply in the
>>> circumstances, and so will your opponents.  They are entitled to have
>>> all of the relevant information you might consider in making that
>>> decision.
>>
>> There are two things wrong with that approach.
>>
>> First of all, it is much too complicated.
>> Explaining possible agreements, and meta-agreements, and then why one
>> or other meta-agreement ought to take precedence, will take up far too
>> much time.
>
> I can explain them almost as fast as I can think them, so that's not
> a problem.
>
> Of course, I may be under time pressure and it may take up far to
> much time to consider them and reach an appropriate conclusion, in
> which case I may just plunge ahead and do whatever seems right at the
> moment.  Of course, that won't matter to Herman, who is prepared, if
> I get it right, to rule that I had a concealed agreement that I
> didn't know about that I derived from a set of meta-agreeements that
> I didn't recall.  /sarcasm off
>
> I don't recall anyone suggesting that disclosure need only be correct
> and complete if time permits.
>
>> Secondly, at the end of it all, you will have to decide anyway. And so
>> will your opponents. And what if they draw a different conclusion than
>> you do?
>
> If they're better bridge players than I am, the fact that they drew a
> different conclusion probably means that they're right and I'm
> wrong.  To pretend that what I concluded from the knowledge of my
> agreements (which I would not have disclosed) is in fact a
> partnership agreement is to preclude the opponents from figuring
> things out correctly for themselves; it is, in effect, a deliberate
> deception designed to make superior opponents go wrong.
>
>> You will say that you've given them everything you "knew". But
>> maybe in drawing your conclusion, you used something like "I know my
>> partner, and he is not as devious as that". You did not tell them
>> that, and it turned out to be crucial.
>>
>> In the end, you came up with the correct meaning, and your opponents
>> did not. It should not be up to the director to decide whether or not
>> you told them everything. You could simply have told the conclusion
>> you drew.
>
> Sure, *if* "in the end, [I come] up with the correct meaning",
> because then the director will never know the difference.  But if I
> don't, the fact that I have given blatant and deliberate
> misinformation will come to light, and I'll spend the rest of my days
> in the bridge world trying to convince folks that I'm not a cheater,
> just an innocent DWS adherent.
>
> If a player who cannot determine the meaning of partner's bid could
> be counted on to come up with the correct meaning in the end every
> time, the DWS would work to perfection, would be totally
> uncontroversial, and would have been long since written into law.
> But in the real world, when you don't know, sometimes you don't work
> it out correctly, and then the DWS fails miserably: the opponents
> can't ever go right, and you get punished for the "crime" of
> encountering a "hole" in your system.
>
>
> Eric Landau
> 1107 Dale Drive
> Silver Spring MD 20910
> ehaa at starpower.net
>
>
>
>
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