Those are all reasonable questions to ask and points to raise, and I’m not going to go to bat defending any of the suggestions I made off the top of my head when writing the original question. The point of the original question was to see if anybody out there had publications asking/answering the sort of questions you pose, and it looks like the answer is “no”.
For some of these questions, as you argue, it’s possible that the lack of literature is because there really isn’t anything interesting to be found. But at least some of these questions would be interesting to have an answer to regardless of what the answer is—e.g. your example “Is the body’s normal state of operation one of scarcity or non-scarcity?”.
More generally, a better analogy than the dog picture would be the periodic table. At first glance (and certainly before the development of quantum theory) an argument could be made that it doesn’t tell us anything we can’t figure out without it. But it did hint at what questions to ask—e.g. undiscovered elements and their properties. If insulin acts as a price signal (even without a rationing role) or if the body’s fat stores are governed by an internally-represented discount rate, then that immediately suggests that a variety of different cell types would look at those signals to determine their behavior—possibly cell types and behaviors not yet examined. It also predicts that cells which convert one resource into another would examine the corresponding price signals, and adjust production based on relative prices. Like the periodic table, these ideas suggest relationships to look for.
Thanks, and I seem to have come across as more critical/confrontational than I actually felt (so seemed to have been demanding some defense from you—sorry). My intent was to better tease out what type of questions you might be asking and hoping to answer. I understand your thinking and motivation bit better now.
Those are all reasonable questions to ask and points to raise, and I’m not going to go to bat defending any of the suggestions I made off the top of my head when writing the original question. The point of the original question was to see if anybody out there had publications asking/answering the sort of questions you pose, and it looks like the answer is “no”.
For some of these questions, as you argue, it’s possible that the lack of literature is because there really isn’t anything interesting to be found. But at least some of these questions would be interesting to have an answer to regardless of what the answer is—e.g. your example “Is the body’s normal state of operation one of scarcity or non-scarcity?”.
More generally, a better analogy than the dog picture would be the periodic table. At first glance (and certainly before the development of quantum theory) an argument could be made that it doesn’t tell us anything we can’t figure out without it. But it did hint at what questions to ask—e.g. undiscovered elements and their properties. If insulin acts as a price signal (even without a rationing role) or if the body’s fat stores are governed by an internally-represented discount rate, then that immediately suggests that a variety of different cell types would look at those signals to determine their behavior—possibly cell types and behaviors not yet examined. It also predicts that cells which convert one resource into another would examine the corresponding price signals, and adjust production based on relative prices. Like the periodic table, these ideas suggest relationships to look for.
Thanks, and I seem to have come across as more critical/confrontational than I actually felt (so seemed to have been demanding some defense from you—sorry). My intent was to better tease out what type of questions you might be asking and hoping to answer. I understand your thinking and motivation bit better now.
No problem, and they are great questions. :)