Curiously, these drawbacks appear to have a common theme; they all concern, one way or another, temporal aspects of decision making.
Ainslie and Powers are certainly two who’ve taken up this question; Ainslie from the perspective of discounted prediction, and Powers from the perspective of correcting time-averaged perceptions.
I think both are required to fully understand human decisionmaking. Powers fills in the gap of Ainslie’s vague notion of “appetites”, while Ainslie fills in for the lack of any sort of foresight or prediction in Powers’ model.
IOW, I think human beings derive “motivation to act” (“appetite” in Ainslie’s terms) from the difference between the current value and the reference value of a time-averaged measurement (per Powers), but choose which action to take, based on a hyperbolically-discounted prediction of how their actions will affect the variable whose value is being adjusted (per Ainslie).
This combination of two non-timeless ways of measuring “utility” seems to much better describe what humans actually do.
Ainslie and Powers are certainly two who’ve taken up this question; Ainslie from the perspective of discounted prediction, and Powers from the perspective of correcting time-averaged perceptions.
Presumably this Ainslie). But if Powers is William (PCT) Powers then I don’t know what you’re referring to by “correcting time-averaged perceptions”.
Ainslie and Powers are certainly two who’ve taken up this question; Ainslie from the perspective of discounted prediction, and Powers from the perspective of correcting time-averaged perceptions.
I think both are required to fully understand human decisionmaking. Powers fills in the gap of Ainslie’s vague notion of “appetites”, while Ainslie fills in for the lack of any sort of foresight or prediction in Powers’ model.
IOW, I think human beings derive “motivation to act” (“appetite” in Ainslie’s terms) from the difference between the current value and the reference value of a time-averaged measurement (per Powers), but choose which action to take, based on a hyperbolically-discounted prediction of how their actions will affect the variable whose value is being adjusted (per Ainslie).
This combination of two non-timeless ways of measuring “utility” seems to much better describe what humans actually do.
Presumably this Ainslie). But if Powers is William (PCT) Powers then I don’t know what you’re referring to by “correcting time-averaged perceptions”.