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Ch52-I044963.fm Page 257 Thursday, July 27, 2006 8:11 AM
Thursday, July 27, 2006
8:11AM
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OBSERVABLES OF OPPOSITES ALTERNATIVES
IN DECISION MAKING

2
Junichi Yagi', Eiji Arai , and Shinji Matsumoto 3
i
Institute of Technology, Shimizu Corporation, Tokyo 135-8530, Japan
1
Osaka University, Graduate School of Engineering, Suita, Osaka 565, Japan
3
CSP Japan, Tokyo 100-0011, Japan

ABSTRACT

Project management requires a project manager to make a series of hard decisions as his project
develops or prior to its commencement. A choice must be made more often rather than otherwise out
of the opposite alternatives. This manuscript investigates a proper model for decision mechanism of
choice out of the severely contending opposite alternatives, the source of complexity in consequences.

KEYWORDS
dynamic interaction of alternatives, potentials and events, Mobius surface, Verhulst equation,
intensional and extensional wholes

INTRODUCTION
A decision maker faces a series of opposite alternatives for choice, seemingly equally valid, from
which it is forced to choose one. They are oftentimes under severe contention which way to go may
lead to possibly far different consequences or distinct pattern of consequences. It is the norm for
decision making, rather than otherwise, to make a choice out of the opposite alternatives.

He confronts with burning potential of opposites at every decision point- to the left or to the right, up
or down, metaphorically, A or ~A, speaking most generically, where both opposites coexist in acting
potential, and both are capable of being, but not yet in existence as event. This mode of existence is
called acting potential, whose opposite elements are both rushing toward realization, and only one of
which will be realized. In design process, it is the opposite alternatives for almost every parameter that
are concerned and stand together under severe contention. This manuscript investigates the peculiar
characteristics of acting potential, the logical relation between potentials and events, and the
consequent dynamic interaction (Prigogine 1980, Kauffman 1993) among them, which may provide us
with better understanding of the underlying mechanism how the opposites influence a decision-making.