The oracle is a thing which looks into the future.
It is kind of like how the weather service predicts the weather,
with complex mathmatic models based on precise measurements
of the natural world with physical tools. It is a science, of sorts.

The schools? Operations Reserch, Game Theory, Networking, Physics…
the list is long.

The Air Force has had a hand in this. They used computers to keep track of inventorys. The one I used was a sperry univac, the same kind Sears used to keep track of thier
inventorys (or so the story goes).

They also used Computers like SAGE;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06drBN8nlWg

This was the brown shoe days, those men who served in the army air corp of WW2.
Here is IBMs version;
https://www.archive.org/details/OnGuard1956

It was thought that computer models of the economy could be made. Some world
models, such as the club of rome model, predict that industrial civilization was due to
collapse if something were not done about world population growth. Those who interpeate the output of such oracles find a short term solution in genocide.

We have to be careful of these electronic thought amplifiers, because they can
(perhaps, already have) cause men to seek good out of evil.

Is chaos management something other than Zen?

The “pieces” to which you refer are technique; we need to have (as Nachmanovitch says) technique to burn.

My quibble was with “not placing them until you know where they should go in that specific encounter.” By the time you know where to strike, you’re dead.

I could be mistaken, and often am, but I don’t think my last sentence was diametrically opposed to your point. The swordsman without a plan for that specific encounter had a sword and had developed the capacity to use it to cut off the opponent’s head. Those fundamentals are the kinds of “pieces” to which I refer. In the “Blink” book, the Greek art experts had an instant reaction to the fake sculpture, but those reactions sprung from minds developed by years of research and study.

One of the few valuable things I took home from law school was when Mike Sharlot said “at the end of the day, it isn’t a matter of whether you fucked the case up or not. Most assuredly, you have fucked the case up. The question is, did you cover your ass? Did you fix the problems before anyone else found them, or had a chance to capitalize on them?”

My idol, as a lawyer, is Gumby. It’s all about flexibility… When the shit is hitting the fan, can you smile, look nonchalantly about, open your umbrella, and keep it all of of you and your client without anyone ever realizing that it was you who turned the fan on?

Can you fix the problem, or better yet, make it the other guy’s problem?

Grace under pressure comes from adaptability. A plan can hamper that, or at least, an inflexible plan. A plan needs a backup plan when things doing go as planned. A backup plan needs a backup plan… etc. I’m not smart enough to have that many plans in my head.

There is an old Jewish proverb “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” See? I’d planned to work that in there, and I did.

I think your last sentence is almost diametrically opposed to my point.

While some preparation is critical to success, it is inefficient and dangerous to rigidly plan your moves when you don’t have perfect information or insight into your opponent. IMHO, it comes down to making sure you have the pieces available to play, but not placing them until you know where they should go in that specific encounter.