I worked on a global e-commerce platform with the man had been responsible for deciding if the US should spend money on a moon base. He asked me, "How are good decisions are made?" I didn't say much. There are times when you think your opinions don't really matter. For me to waste air speculating about the best way to make important decisions - when I could learn from a man like Dr. Peter Ossorio - would be like explaining the brilliance of my favorite Michael Boulton song to Beethoven. But, there was a brilliance in Peter's methods and asking my opinion was part of that. After the appropriate amount of quiet-time - his gravitational field was represented by an equation that largely involved quiet-time - he said, "Well... you and the team go out and sit around a beer-sticky table and write ideas on half soaked paper napkins." Well, that might not be exactly what he said - but that's pretty much exactly the point. He wasn’t completely focused on exactly what he said at any particular moment, he was listening to the listeners.

To further complicate matters, Peter was watching himself listen to the listeners. He was a man of depth - a conscious observer and because of that... a virtuoso decision maker. The moon base came down to a lack of water. Dehydration just wasn't worth it because there was nothing of great value (like beer) to convince you to be on the moon anyway.

Consider...

Experience: The Matrix, Inception, Memento

Artificial intelligence: Space Odyssey, Moneyball, Minority Report

Social control: Clockwork Orange, Brazil, 1984

Arguably, each of these movies asks - what is it to be human in a world of technology? What can be done to protect the important bits? Descriptive Psychology, the field pioneered by Dr. Ossorio, might provide a foundation to consider these questions.

If important decisions (beer) are going to be made...

I want to make them freely.

I don’t want the process taken from me

or be helped along by a machine

I didn't invite to assess my behavior.

When I think of making choices, of the power deployed by the advertising industry, and the emerging powers of Artificial Intelligence to "help"... I think of Peter. Mature reflection, exploration, speculation, and good natured argument about important decisions, should not be sacrificed to machines reading our minds or influencing it without our awareness.