Surprising Insight? The Nature of Decision Making

[by Dr. Thomas Saaty]

The AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and ANP (Analytic Network Process) methodologies take into consideration all of the factors that are difficult for other methodologies to take into consideration in a sufficiently refined way based on an accurate and valid representation of the intensities of judgments.

How can we learn to consciously deal with influence? We need to accept the following observations:

1) A person is a nervous system equipped with senses, muscle and bone to control the environment; the nervous system develops judgments;

2) The influences as described by judgments and synthesized in the mind are describable by a “hypermatrix” the interactions of whose submatrices are derivable from raising it to powers;

3) Theoretically, people interact by combining certain priorities in their hypermatrices raising the result to powers and then comparing to determine agreement and differences;

4) All things in nature are order seeking in some internally determined sense.

The most pervasive idea that all living things share is that of making choices for action in the face of different kinds of influence. This action is our way of controlling and responding to influences with the kind of influence that we prefer according to our purpose. Sometimes biology and chemistry have a unique choice built-in which may be unfavorable to the circumstances. At other times there is an opportunity to try different choices.

The most important case is when the choices are several and we have to choose one from them that is best according to some criteria. This freedom of choice shows that a human being is an advanced form of existence with an ability to consciously control its survival and destiny. But still we are limited in what we can sense and perceive and thus our choices are conditional by our body form and by our senses and environment in which we live. Next to chemistry, physics and electricity that create form and function, decision-making is the most important function that arises from them to further the future of life. The essence of our survival depends on the quality and kind of decisions we make and how much we factor into them influences that may not be here today, but could occur tomorrow to change their significance.