I
Two drivers of not-knowing, inexperience and difficulty are often conflated—information overload and cognitive undercomprehension.
Think of information overload as: The “right” information is actually there but hidden in the info glut around us. Cognitive undercomprehension, in contrast, is: Our cognitive limitations undermine our ability to recognize anything like “the right information” for the matter at hand.
Overload means we would be high-performing analysts and managers if only we were to tease out the right information from all the noise obscuring it. Undercomprehension means we are held to such high-performing standards we couldn’t possibly know the right information, even if it were in front of us before our very eyes. “I could do my job if only I had the right information” is not “No one could do the job I’m tasked with, whatever the info available.”
II
Two upshots deserve emphasis.
First, at or beyond the limits of cognition, not only are prediction and forecasting difficult, so too is identifying counterfactual conditions, not least of which is what would happen if overload and undercomprehension were absent or otherwise ameliorated.
Second, arguments asserted as policy relevant because of their diamond-sharp clarity rarely get beyond the magic stage. They misdirect us from better identifying any overload and undercomprehension already present, were we only to look for them. They don’t want you to see the shadows as their flashlight is too bright.
Source
Sartori, G. (1989). Undercomprehension. Government and Opposition 24(4): 391–400.
WHEN COMPLEX IS AS SIMPLE AS IT GETS 