Talk:Satisficing

optimisation

Italic textin clear terms describe the concept of optimisation in the theory of a firm

portmanteau

Is "satisficing" a portmanteau? When I first heard it, I figured it would be a portmanteau between "satisfy" and "sacrifice". I was going to edit this information it, but after reading the article, I'm not sure that it is correct. Does anyone know? Phasmatisnox 00:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe it is a portmanteau, but I assumed it was between "satisfy" and "suffice." I have no evidence of this.

I didn't think it was a portmanteau... Simon (1956) seems to have suggested that it's an old Northumbrian word meaning "satisfy". Maybe it was originally a portmanteau, but I don't remember reading any papers that explicitly say so. (Googling "satisficing + northumbria" seems to back this up, but I'm not really interested enough to do the work required to fix the page). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.210.164.43 (talk) 08:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

To think of the word "satisfice" as a portmanteau of "satisfy" and either "sacrifice" or "suffice" can be a useful means of remembering the sense of the word, as a satisficing strategy will sacrifice an optimal outcome in favour of a sufficient or satisfactory outcome. However, "satisfice" is not a portmanteau. The word originated as an alternative spelling of the transitive verb "satisfy" (influenced by the Latin "satisfacére") that is now obsolete except in northern dialects of England. ("satisfice" The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 12 Jul. 2010 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50213784>) —Andrew Fogg (talk) 12:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

"Satisficing" is a handy blended word combinig "satisfy" with "suffice": it means that instead of searching for the the best possible decision outcome, for instance...you take one that will satisfy some criterion, one that is good enough. Simon called this criterion an aspiration level.

—Ken Manktelow: Reasoning and Thinking.

--Arno Matthias (talk) 10:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Citations

This article is missing key citations. For example, the book where Simon introducing satsificing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.101.242.138 (talk) 17:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

HAL

I don't get the part about HAL. I don't see how HAL's behavior supports the idea that satisficing is a primarily human behavior. If anything, it does the opposite -Domokato (talk) 21:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Novus Ordo??

I had a quick skim through Novus Ordo Mass and I don't quite get the connection. Any thoughts? --Slashme (talk) 05:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Rating

This article is well written and informative, but it needs inline citations. LK (talk) 19:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Citations Again

I agree that the attribution to Simon seems inadequately supported. The earliest use of the term that i'm aware of is by Roy Radner in 1975: "Satisficing," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Vol. 2, 1975, pp. 253-62. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.69.162 (talk) 20:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

1956 H. SIMON in Psychol. Rev. LXIII. 129/2 Evidently, organisms adapt well enough to ‘satisfice’; they do not, in general, ‘optimize’. —Andrew Fogg (talk) 12:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Relationship with optimisation

Anyone got anything against me creating a section called "relationship with optimization"?

This would take in the current "cybernetics and artificial intelligence" section as well as well as the stuff added in this edit to the "decision making" section.

Yaris678 (talk) 12:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

OK. Done that.

In the process I have taken out the following dubious statement:

“

During a 1997 chess game against Deep Blue, Garry Kasparov, after being defeated in a game where his computer opponent adopted a satisficing position,[citation needed] remarked that the computer was "playing like a human." Kasparov later explained that, when playing computers, chess masters could often defeat them by predicting the most "rational" move; however, satisficing made such a prediction unreliable.

”

I may do a bit more tidying up to the bit moved from the "decision making" section.

Yaris678 (talk) 13:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)