[Simon] Strange similarities between evolutionary theory and corporate pursuit of rationality

Roughly speaking

"Reason in Human Activity" Part 2. Translator Yamagata Hiroo himself published a summary on his blog.
Learn more about true theory of evolution. It also mentions the niche's survival area, not merely the survival of the fittest.
In the end, the pursuit of rationality by companies is merely a local peak, and hasn't they reached the real, big-picture peak?

Reason in Human Activity

This is the second installment of "reason in human activity" by Herbert-Simon, a giant of economics.

In fact, when I was writing the second installment, translator Yamagata Hiroo himself published a summary on his blog, but I would like to write about it with an emphasis on understanding.

Herbert A. Simon, Reason in Human Activity, Anchoco

Last time, we presented four models of rationality.

Herbert Simon How humans can make rational choices? (Reason in Human Affairs)

Among the superhuman models, behavioral models, intuition models, and evolutionary adaptation models, it pointed out that economics is biased towards superhuman models and is not realistic.

We present a fourth evolutionary adaptation model as a realistic rationality model, and this time we will cover this detail.

Darwin's famous theory of evolution begins with the details of evolution, and then neatly connects to the story of rationality.

True Evolution

The evolutionary rationality model is justification from the results that "if you behave rationally, you can actually behave rationally." The legitimacy of a company's growth process is based on the fact that the company has survived.

It is the mechanism of Darwin's traditional theory of evolution that views what has changed and the resultant survival as evolution.

Evolution theory envisages a race to survive in part of the ecosystem.

If the changes in one's species are adapted to the other species, they can be overwhelmed by numbers than the other species, and in the end the ecosystem is left only by one's own species.

However, as you can see from a look at the Earth, so many species of living things still survive today, and considering the sequence of genes, it seems possible that all kinds of changes can be expected in the future.

Real ecosystems have many niches, and living things coexist and survive.

For example, plants undergo photosynthesis. Animals suck oxygen from photosynthesis. Phruss is a fertilizer for plants.

It is not just a race to survive, but a relationship of coexistence arises.

When applying evolution to human society, biologically, there is a lack of human generations, so there is little biological change, but evolution is taking place from the perspective of socio-culturalism.

Human society creates a relationship of coexistence in the form of cultural transmission. The coexistence relationship of corporate competition is similar to the coexistence relationship of ecosystems.

Local Peak

Evolution is thought of as a basis for selfish behavior, but in some plants and humans, there is a mechanism that supports the prosperity of the same species through altruistic behavior.

In terms of rationalizing the micro world, selfish lifestyle should be correct, but as a society, a combination of altruistic actions can sometimes survive more than selfish actions.

In this context, it can be said that the rationalization actions of human society, such as acting altruistically while acting selfishly in a competitive state, have greatly contributed to the evolution of society.

However, evolution has its own pitfalls. There's no speed.

rationalization is an action that optimizes all elements, but evolution only works gradually. In other words, humans can only rationalize options that can be taken within the limited view of humans as living things of the current generation, and even if rationalization has been achieved, it is likely that they are merely local peaks (the peak of rationalization within me, and there is a large peak of a higher mountain where more optimizations can be achieved).

Even in ecosystems, invasive species and external influences can suddenly be lost when they are stable. (It's easy to understand when you consider the extinction of dinosaurs and black bass.)

Humans also risk suddenly losing their ecosystems due to aliens.

However, as mentioned above, best practices for rationalization within a limited perspective are to continue exploration and kaizen while taking altruistic actions in society.

In terms of four rationalization images, the second model of action and the fourth model of evolutionary adaptation are similar. Both humans and businesses have no choice but to continue rationalizing actions at the forefront, broadening their horizons as much as possible.