HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ANALYSIS

In our work, and in our personal affairs, we can address inference and decision problems at various levels of detail. As an introductory example, we describe a situation in which we do not decompose a problem at all and consider some of the consequences of failure to do any decomposition. Faced with the task of drawing a conclusion about some matter of interest, we may gather some information that seems relevant and believable, think about it for a while, and eventually draw at least a tentative conclusion. We do this all in our own heads without recording any of the stages and details in our analysis. Furthermore, there is usually no orderly structure to our trains of thought in this analysis. This approach has a name: It is called a holistic approach to emphasize the fact that we deal with some problem in its perceived entirety all at once and without any kind of outside assistance or interference. In simple problems involving our own personal affairs, we may do this very frequently. But there are some natural hazards involved in a completely holistic approach to inference and decision problems. The following is a very simple example of what can happen as a result of an entirely holistic approach.