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Sunday, December 15, 2024

Basketball - Belief Updating and Decision Making

"It's what you learn after you know everything that matters." 

Decision-makers come with a set of beliefs, fixed or changeable, surrounded by a maelstrom of ideas - supportive and conflicting. How do decision-makers improve by sticking with the 'good', adding 'better', and rejecting what doesn't work?

That's the science and system of "belief updating." This 'feels' like a good starting place for AI. I prompted ChatGPT to provide an overview on belief updating.

Introduction to Belief Updating

Belief updating is the process of revising one’s beliefs or opinions in response to new evidence, insights, or perspectives. At its core, it is a method for maintaining intellectual flexibility and ensuring decisions are grounded in the best available information rather than in preexisting biases or assumptions.

Why Belief Updating Matters

  1. Combats Confirmation Bias: Humans naturally favor information that supports their existing beliefs. Belief updating challenges this tendency by encouraging openness to evidence that contradicts preconceptions.
  2. Improves Decision-Making: Decisions are only as sound as the information that supports them. Updating beliefs ensures choices align with reality, not outdated or incomplete ideas.
  3. Encourages Growth: By regularly refining beliefs, individuals evolve intellectually and adapt to new circumstances.

Key Elements of Belief Updating

  1. Recognize the Baseline: Start by identifying your current belief and the reasons supporting it. This provides clarity about what you think and why.
  2. Seek New Evidence: Proactively search for data or arguments, especially those that challenge your current belief. This step minimizes the risk of confirmation bias.
  3. Evaluate Evidence Objectively: Assess the credibility, relevance, and significance of new information without emotional attachment to your prior stance.
  4. Adjust Confidence Levels: Instead of thinking in absolutes (e.g., "I’m 100% sure"), belief updating often involves adjusting how strongly you hold a belief based on the weight of new evidence.
  5. Iterate Regularly: Beliefs aren’t static. Continuously reexamine them as circumstances and evidence evolve.

Bayesian Thinking and Belief Updating

Belief updating is central to Bayesian reasoning, a statistical approach that provides a formal framework for incorporating new evidence into prior beliefs. In simple terms:

  • Prior: Start with an initial belief (e.g., "The weather tomorrow will be sunny").
  • Evidence: Encounter new data (e.g., a forecast predicts rain).
  • Posterior: Combine the prior and evidence to form an updated belief (e.g., "It’s more likely to rain tomorrow than I initially thought").

While Bayesian updating can seem abstract, the underlying idea—adjusting beliefs proportionally to the strength of new evidence—can be applied in everyday decision-making.

Practical Applications

  • Personal Growth: Revising long-held opinions when presented with compelling counterarguments fosters intellectual humility.
  • Leadership: Good leaders adapt strategies in response to new information, avoiding rigidity.
  • Conflict Resolution: By updating beliefs in light of shared evidence, disputes can be reframed as collaborative problem-solving.

Belief updating is not about abandoning conviction but about having the courage and discipline to align beliefs with reality. It requires honesty, curiosity, and a willingness to embrace change. In doing so, it unlocks more objective, fair, and effective decision-making.

An initial takeaway: 

  • Our "belief set" is a starting point. 
  • Are we flexible enough to adjust to make better decisions?
  • New evidence surrounds us. How credible is it? 
  • What adjustments belong in our new belief set? 
  • Can we stay open and readjust to even more data? 
Apply this to basketball theory and practice. 

1) Injury management. A player gets a generic pull or sprained ankle. Traditional teaching is RICE - rest, icing, compression, and elevation. Recent experimental data challenges the belief that icing was superior for muscle injury. "A single session of HWI 41 , rather than CWI 11 , improved the recovery of the late-phase rate of force development following EIMD in physically active males. This suggests that in athletic contexts where a rapid force development is a key performance determinant, hot bath should be preferred over cold bath."

A "knowledge gap" exists among treatment options. Cold decreases pain and initial inflammation. Heat increases flexibility and relaxes muscles. 

2) Triple threat or something else? Kelbick's idea of "think shot first" pressures defenders. Open on the catch and 'stampede' attack on the catch both have merit.  

3) What's the best offense? At one point, thanks to Michael and Kobe, people believed the Triangle Offense was best as it won something like 11 of 24 titles. Was it the offense or the superstars? Someone tries to sell the Princeton Offense everyday online. It's the Bitcoin of offense. Because the Celtics won a championship, should everyone run spread (five out)? Of course not. 


Be open to learning and updating our beliefs. 

Lagniappe. "Orbit" 

Lagniappe 2. Results.  

Lagniappe 3. Take advantage of ball-u-man. 

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