Knowns, Unknowns, and GPS

“…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
-Donald Rumsfeld February 12 2002


It can be difficult to make high stress decisions because like Donald Rumsfeld we know there are knowns and unknowns. The algorithm articulates this by reflecting a series of choices like the branches of a tree with each decision starting at the same place but traveling its own path down one of many possible branches. The troubling issue is all the branches you can not travel down which may possible yield better results than the one you traveled. In considering the unknowns vastly outnumber the knowns it also looks to be almost impossible to make a good decision in terms of the statistical possiblies. This tree of possible choices poses a geometry to decision making as defined by it’s relation to the algorithm. Yet this proposes a model of decision making which is incompatible with the linear formation of time which always places one thing before or after another. The realization of how multiple situations could exist at this point of time makes time’s linearity seem tangible as any one of a series of possible outcomes could happen if the process was repeated enough. Time changes from a linear process to a recursive one within this model of understanding and it’s repetition becomes a way of abstracting a new truth or meaning through the algorithm and it’s resulting tree geometry. Time becomes nothing more than another variable with the larger decision process of the algorithm which is some foreign to the human condition.
I think this idea is present in this interview of Paul Virilio with John Armitage :

John Armitage: How do these developments relate to Global Positioning Systems (GPS)? For example, in The Art of the Motor (1995 [1993]), you were very interested in the relationship between globalisation, physical space, and the phenomenon of virtual spaces, positioning, or, 'delocalization'. In what ways, if any, do you think that militarized GPS played a 'delocalizing' role in the war in Kosovo?
Paul Virilio: GPS not only played a large and delocalizing role in the war in Kosovo but is increasingly playing a role in social life. For instance, it was the GPS that directed the planes, the missiles and the bombs to localised targets in Kosovo. But may I remind you that the bombs that were dropped by the B-2 plane on the Chinese embassy ? or at least that is what we were told ? were GPS bombs. And the B-2 flew in from the US. However, GPS are everywhere. They are in cars. They were even in the half-tracks that, initially at least, were going to make the ground invasion in Kosovo possible. Yet, for all the sophistication of GPS, there still remain numerous problems with their use. The most obvious problem in this context is the problem of landmines. For example, when the French troops went into Kosovo they were told that they were going to enter in half-tracks, over the open fields. But their leaders had forgotten about the landmines. And this was a major problem because, these days, landmines are no longer localized. They are launched via tubes and distributed haphazardly over the territory. As a result, one cannot remove them after the war because one cannot find them! And yet the ability to detect such landmines, especially in a global war of movement, is absolutely crucial. Thus, for the US, GPS are a form of sovereignty! It is hardly surprising, then, that the EU has proposed its own GPS in order to be able to localise and to compete with the American GPS. As I have said before, sovereignty no longer resides in the territory itself, but in the control of the territory. And localization is an inherent part of that territorial control. As I pointed out in The Art of the Motor and elsewhere, from now on we need two watches: a wristwatch to tell us what time it is and a GPS watch to tell us what space it is!
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=132 March 31 2008

It seems that both space and time both become variables within some larger series of decisions which determine who is in control? Are their landmines here? and will this place be bombed in five minutes? It also becomes of critical importance in how the algorithm is defined as whatever value system the algorithm identifies becomes the system by which space or geometry, time and their related decisions will be rationalized.