Bounded Rationality and Its Discontents

This book views cognitive processes of bounded rationality at different scales and levels of organization as cultural artifacts, seen through the lens of the asymptotic limit theorems of information and control theories. The resulting probability models are novel, deep, and provide a route for the development of new statistical tools aimed at the address of real-world, real-time phenomena ranging across individual minds, institutions, newly-developed machine cognition, and their various composites. A central finding is that, for any and all cognitive systems, culture-bound syndromes of ‘psychopathology’ aren’t bugs, but arise as inherent features of real-world challenge. This book is intended both as a tutorial and a toolbox for scientifically literate students, researchers, and practitioners. Potential applications range across the study and remediation of individual mental disorders, failures of machine cognition, and institutional dysfunction. This book is of particular use to those tasked with the maintenance of public health, public order, and collective security.