Richard, I agree with your below reply. Ed Porter -----Original Message----- From: Richard Loosemore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 1:05 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [agi] Some more professional opinions on motivational systems
Ed Porter wrote: > After two weeks in which this list has been dominated by amateur psychology > about the motivations of humans and other intelligences, I thought the > following review about a book written by an MIT economist about human > behavior might shed some light. > From > > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/books/review/Berreby-t.html?ref=review > a NYTime book review of "Predictaly Irrational: The Hidden > Forces that Shape our Decisions, by Dan Ariely.. > In its most relevant section it states the following > "At the heart of the market approach to understanding people > is a set of assumptions. First, you are a coherent and unitary self. Second, > you can be sure of what this self of yours wants and needs, and can predict > what it will do. Third, you get some information about yourself from your > body - objective facts about hunger, thirst, pain and pleasure that help > guide your decisions. Standard economics, as Ariely writes, assumes that all > of us, equipped with this sort of self, "know all the pertinent information > about our decisions" and "we can calculate the value of the different > options we face." We are, for important decisions, rational, and that's what > makes markets so effective at finding value and allocating work. To borrow > from H. L. Mencken, the market approach presumes that "the common people > know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." > "What the past few decades of work in psychology, sociology > and economics has shown, as Ariely describes, is that all three of these > assumptions are false. Yes, you have a rational self, but it's not your only > one, nor is it often in charge. A more accurate picture is that there are a > bunch of different versions of you, who come to the fore under different > conditions. We aren't cool calculators of self-interest who sometimes go > crazy; we're crazies who are, under special circumstances, sometimes > rational." It sheds a little light, but not much. It is certainly consistent with the structure of a complex "motivational emotional system" that I talk about a lot. What the book seems to be saying is that economists have a very primitive view of human psychology. It appears to say that in an elegant and convincing way, but the news is not really news to me. Some hard core AI proponents of the idea of a "rational agent" might be upset by it, but that would be no surprise either. Richard Loosemore ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?&; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=98558129-0bdb63 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
