You have it all wrong. Your “ugh” field should go into their utility function! Whether or not they invest the resources to overcome that “ugh” field and save their life is endogenous to their situation!
You are making the case for rationality, it seems to me. Your suggestion may be that people are emotional, but not that they are irrational! Indeed, this is what the GMU crowd calls “rationally irrational.” Which makes perfect sense—think about the perfectly rational decision to get drunk (and therefore be irrational). It has costs and benefits that you evaluate and decide that going with your emotions is preferable.
I see this comment as not understanding the definition of “rational” in economics, which would be simply maximizing utility subject to costs such as incomplete information (and endogeneous amounts of information), emotional constraints and costs, etc.
I appreciate the Devil’s Advocacy. The simple issue, though, is that if you use a definition of “rational” that encompasses this behaviour, you’ve watered the word down to oblivion. If the behaviour I described is rational, then, “People who act always act rationally,” is essentially indistinguishable from, “People who act always act.” It’s generally best to avoid having a core concept with a definition so vacuous it can be neatly excised by Occam’s Razor.
You are just wrong. These are people whose utility function does not place a higher utility on “dieing but not having to take my meds”.
If your preferred theory takes a human and forces the self-contradictions into a simple rational agent with a coherent utility function you must resolve the contradictions the way the agent would prefer them to be resolved if they were capable of resolving them intelligently. If your preferred theory does not do this then it is a crap theory. A map that does not describe the territory. A map that is better used as toilet paper.
“These are people whose utility function does not place a higher utility on ‘dieing but not having to take my meds’.”
Why are you making claims about their utility functions that the data does not back? Either people prefer less to more, knowingly, or they are making rational decisions about ignorance, and not violating their “ugh” field, which is costly for them.
How is that any different than a smoker being uncomfortable quitting smoking? (Here I recognize that smoking is obviously a rational behavior for people who choose to smoke).
I get it. You define humans as rational agents with utility functions of whatever it is that they happen to do because it was convenient for the purposes of a model they taught you in Economics 101. You are still just wrong.
Your posts under this name have the potential for some hilarious and educational trolling, though you have some stiff competition if you want to be the best.
You should probably refine your approach a little bit. Links to the literature would give you more points for style. Also, the parenthetical aside was a bit much—it made the trolling too obvious.
How is that any different than a smoker being uncomfortable quitting smoking?
It’s pretty similar, actually: just as a smoker may prefer to quit but find doing so psychologically difficult, someone with a terminal illness may prefer to take their meds but also find it difficult. It’s not clear how to assign utility in such a case, as the agent involved isn’t a unified whole. There’s the sub-agent who is addicted and the sub-agent who wants to quit.
You have it all wrong. Your “ugh” field should go into their utility function! Whether or not they invest the resources to overcome that “ugh” field and save their life is endogenous to their situation!
You are making the case for rationality, it seems to me. Your suggestion may be that people are emotional, but not that they are irrational! Indeed, this is what the GMU crowd calls “rationally irrational.” Which makes perfect sense—think about the perfectly rational decision to get drunk (and therefore be irrational). It has costs and benefits that you evaluate and decide that going with your emotions is preferable.
I see this comment as not understanding the definition of “rational” in economics, which would be simply maximizing utility subject to costs such as incomplete information (and endogeneous amounts of information), emotional constraints and costs, etc.
I appreciate the Devil’s Advocacy. The simple issue, though, is that if you use a definition of “rational” that encompasses this behaviour, you’ve watered the word down to oblivion. If the behaviour I described is rational, then, “People who act always act rationally,” is essentially indistinguishable from, “People who act always act.” It’s generally best to avoid having a core concept with a definition so vacuous it can be neatly excised by Occam’s Razor.
You are just wrong. These are people whose utility function does not place a higher utility on “dieing but not having to take my meds”.
If your preferred theory takes a human and forces the self-contradictions into a simple rational agent with a coherent utility function you must resolve the contradictions the way the agent would prefer them to be resolved if they were capable of resolving them intelligently. If your preferred theory does not do this then it is a crap theory. A map that does not describe the territory. A map that is better used as toilet paper.
“These are people whose utility function does not place a higher utility on ‘dieing but not having to take my meds’.”
Why are you making claims about their utility functions that the data does not back? Either people prefer less to more, knowingly, or they are making rational decisions about ignorance, and not violating their “ugh” field, which is costly for them.
How is that any different than a smoker being uncomfortable quitting smoking? (Here I recognize that smoking is obviously a rational behavior for people who choose to smoke).
I get it. You define humans as rational agents with utility functions of whatever it is that they happen to do because it was convenient for the purposes of a model they taught you in Economics 101. You are still just wrong.
Your posts under this name have the potential for some hilarious and educational trolling, though you have some stiff competition if you want to be the best.
You should probably refine your approach a little bit. Links to the literature would give you more points for style. Also, the parenthetical aside was a bit much—it made the trolling too obvious.
It’s pretty similar, actually: just as a smoker may prefer to quit but find doing so psychologically difficult, someone with a terminal illness may prefer to take their meds but also find it difficult. It’s not clear how to assign utility in such a case, as the agent involved isn’t a unified whole. There’s the sub-agent who is addicted and the sub-agent who wants to quit.