Trying to explain biology with economic terms is an interesting proposal (creating a story that you can understand?) but it would not be the obvious thought to me.
economic models = made up by humans
physiology = millennia of chance and adaptions under various pressures, creating immensely complex systems that just blow my mind.
The insulin analogy is flawed in many aspects.
There is a basic feedback loop of increased blood Glucose --> increased insulin --> lower Glucose --> reduced insulin to keep blood glucose levels within acceptable limits—fluctuation is expected within the system.
I would suggest researching the connections between hunger/intake/digestion/absorption/blood glucose/beta cells/insulin/cell uptake/cell demand/exertion/glucagon/renal excretion of glucose/polyuria/polydipsia - it’s complex.
Biological models systems have much to teach us. If we ask the questions and notice the connections rather than trying to make them fit with our explanation.
physiology = millennia of chance and adaptions under various pressures, creating immensely complex systems that just blow my mind.
Again, read that review. A central point of the book is that evolved systems repeatedly converge on similar patterns, because those are the patterns which work well. Economics, on the other hand, is largely a mathematical discipline studying general properties of things-which-work-well for optimization. Through that lens, it makes a lot of sense to apply economic models to biological systems.
I would suggest researching the connections between hunger/intake/digestion/absorption/blood glucose/beta cells/insulin/cell uptake/cell demand/exertion/renal excretion of glucose/polyuria/polydipsia— it’s complex.
Biological models have much to teach us. If we ask the questions and notice the connections rather than trying to make them fit with our explanation.
Consider this picture:
There’s a dog in the picture. Once you see the dog, there’s still a lot going on in the picture, but the whole thing makes a lot more sense.
That’s what theory is about. It’s not “trying to make [reality] fit our explanation”, it’s about noticing hidden structure. That’s the sort of value I expect economic theory would provide in physiology.
The structure of insulin/glucose regulation is the structure of a market. Yes, the system is complicated, and there’s a lot of moving pieces—that’s true in markets too. But over long timescales, the pieces are interacting primarily through a price signal—insulin—and that’s the key characteristic which makes it a market, regardless of whatever else is going on locally. That’s a useful piece of hidden structure.
I have read the insulin analogy (I read it before first commenting here).
I don’t know if the insulin analogy is from the book itself or your interpretation. But it is flawed. For multiple reasons. I started to pick it apart line by line but then decided a better course of action would be to try pointing you in the right direction—so that you could do the research about the physiological system, learn about what you are trying to label and then consider whether it is a good path to be following.
Does it really make sense to apply economic labels to physiological systems?
That’s the sort of value I expect economic theory would provide in physiology.
Expect? Careful that you are not rationalising your beliefs.
Models of physiology are also dynamic man made constructs. Physiology was developed by the world. Similarly with models of economics and economics itself. It seems very likely that there are patterns that naturally occur in both model types. If we can build an understanding of how those patterns influence system dynamics, there is potential is applying that understanding whenever we see that pattern. If we find that the understanding doesn’t hold up in the new paradigm then we know our understanding was incomplete and can hopefully use contextual information to reform it. There’s nothing special about economics or physiology in this regard and all fields likely contain information useful to other fields.
If you don’t believe models of physiology are man made, find any example in history where our understanding of physiology changed through the acquisition of new information. The underlying physiology of humans didn’t change in that moment, but our model did.
Model was poor wording on my part at the end, I’ve changed it to physiological systems. They are not constructs of humans. We create “models” , or ‘stories’ to explain things.
Physiology is a process of nature—complicated and only partially understood. Economics is artificial.
Patterns are seen in many things. Fractals is a word I’m just going to chuck in to think about. And the Fibonacci sequence. And the world is freaky.
Applying physiological models (they’ve got pretty good at maintaining equilibrium within a range, and system stability) to economics would potentially be a more productive—if the ‘facts’ that are known are known and considered.
Human market behavior is also complicated and only partially understood. In particular behavior economics finds that humans do all sorts of decisions that violate the rational actor axiom.
At the same time economic theory can still make useful predictions about the behavior of markets.
Trying to explain biology with economic terms is an interesting proposal (creating a story that you can understand?) but it would not be the obvious thought to me.
economic models = made up by humans
physiology = millennia of chance and adaptions under various pressures, creating immensely complex systems that just blow my mind.
The insulin analogy is flawed in many aspects.
There is a basic feedback loop of increased blood Glucose --> increased insulin --> lower Glucose --> reduced insulin to keep blood glucose levels within acceptable limits—fluctuation is expected within the system.
I would suggest researching the connections between hunger/intake/digestion/absorption/blood glucose/beta cells/insulin/cell uptake/cell demand/exertion/glucagon/renal excretion of glucose/polyuria/polydipsia
- it’s complex.
Biological models systems have much to teach us. If we ask the questions and notice the connections rather than trying to make them fit with our explanation.
You should check out the explanation of insulin/glucose regulation in my review of Design Principles of Biological Circuits.
Again, read that review. A central point of the book is that evolved systems repeatedly converge on similar patterns, because those are the patterns which work well. Economics, on the other hand, is largely a mathematical discipline studying general properties of things-which-work-well for optimization. Through that lens, it makes a lot of sense to apply economic models to biological systems.
Consider this picture:
There’s a dog in the picture. Once you see the dog, there’s still a lot going on in the picture, but the whole thing makes a lot more sense.
That’s what theory is about. It’s not “trying to make [reality] fit our explanation”, it’s about noticing hidden structure. That’s the sort of value I expect economic theory would provide in physiology.
The structure of insulin/glucose regulation is the structure of a market. Yes, the system is complicated, and there’s a lot of moving pieces—that’s true in markets too. But over long timescales, the pieces are interacting primarily through a price signal—insulin—and that’s the key characteristic which makes it a market, regardless of whatever else is going on locally. That’s a useful piece of hidden structure.
I have read the insulin analogy (I read it before first commenting here).
I don’t know if the insulin analogy is from the book itself or your interpretation. But it is flawed. For multiple reasons. I started to pick it apart line by line but then decided a better course of action would be to try pointing you in the right direction—so that you could do the research about the physiological system, learn about what you are trying to label and then consider whether it is a good path to be following.
Does it really make sense to apply economic labels to physiological systems?
Expect? Careful that you are not rationalising your beliefs.
Models of physiology are also dynamic man made constructs. Physiology was developed by the world. Similarly with models of economics and economics itself. It seems very likely that there are patterns that naturally occur in both model types. If we can build an understanding of how those patterns influence system dynamics, there is potential is applying that understanding whenever we see that pattern. If we find that the understanding doesn’t hold up in the new paradigm then we know our understanding was incomplete and can hopefully use contextual information to reform it. There’s nothing special about economics or physiology in this regard and all fields likely contain information useful to other fields.
If you don’t believe models of physiology are man made, find any example in history where our understanding of physiology changed through the acquisition of new information. The underlying physiology of humans didn’t change in that moment, but our model did.
Model was poor wording on my part at the end, I’ve changed it to physiological systems. They are not constructs of humans. We create “models” , or ‘stories’ to explain things.
Physiology is a process of nature—complicated and only partially understood. Economics is artificial.
Patterns are seen in many things. Fractals is a word I’m just going to chuck in to think about. And the Fibonacci sequence. And the world is freaky.
Applying physiological models (they’ve got pretty good at maintaining equilibrium within a range, and system stability) to economics would potentially be a more productive—if the ‘facts’ that are known are known and considered.
Human market behavior is also complicated and only partially understood. In particular behavior economics finds that humans do all sorts of decisions that violate the rational actor axiom.
At the same time economic theory can still make useful predictions about the behavior of markets.