I think that if people were to try to define optimal in a specific way, they would find that it requires a model of human behavior; the common one that academics would fall back to is that of Von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function maximization.
I think it’s quite possible that when we have better models of human behavior, we’ll better recognize that in cases where people seem to be doing silly things to improve their health, they’re actually being somewhat optimal given a large sets of physical and mental constraints.
I like that question.
I think that if people were to try to define optimal in a specific way, they would find that it requires a model of human behavior; the common one that academics would fall back to is that of Von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function maximization.
I think it’s quite possible that when we have better models of human behavior, we’ll better recognize that in cases where people seem to be doing silly things to improve their health, they’re actually being somewhat optimal given a large sets of physical and mental constraints.