so I’m very interested in anything you feel you can say about how this doesn’t work to describe your brain.
with respect to economics—I’m thinking about this mostly in terms of partially-model-based reinforcement learning/build-a-brain, and economics arises when you have enough of those in the same environment. the thing you’re asking about there is more on the build-a-brain end and is like pretty open for discussion, the brain probably doesn’t actually have a single scalar reward but rather a thing that can dispatch rewards with different masks or something
That is very difficult to articulate for me. If we take the standard econ choice equilibrium definition of equating marginal utility per dollar, and then toss out the price element since we’re purely comparing the utility (ignoring the whole subjective versus other forms issue here) we don’t need to normalize on cost (I think).
That implies that the preference for completely different actions/choices I make are directly comparable. In other words it is a choice between differences in kind and not categorical differences.
However, when I really find myself in a position where I have a hard choice to make, it’s never a problem with some simply mental calculation such as above but feels entirely different. The challenge I face is that I’m not making that type of comparison but something more along the lines of choosing between two alternatives that lack a common basis for comparison.
I was thinking a bit about this in a different context a while back. If economic decision theory, at least from a consumer perspective, is all about indifference curves, is that really a decision theory or merely a rule following approach? The real decision arises in the setting where you are in a position of indifference between multiple alternative but economics cannot say anything about that—the answer there is flip a coin/random selection but is that really a rational though process for choice?
But, as I said, I’m not entirely sure I think like other people.
so I’m very interested in anything you feel you can say about how this doesn’t work to describe your brain.
with respect to economics—I’m thinking about this mostly in terms of partially-model-based reinforcement learning/build-a-brain, and economics arises when you have enough of those in the same environment. the thing you’re asking about there is more on the build-a-brain end and is like pretty open for discussion, the brain probably doesn’t actually have a single scalar reward but rather a thing that can dispatch rewards with different masks or something
That is very difficult to articulate for me. If we take the standard econ choice equilibrium definition of equating marginal utility per dollar, and then toss out the price element since we’re purely comparing the utility (ignoring the whole subjective versus other forms issue here) we don’t need to normalize on cost (I think).
That implies that the preference for completely different actions/choices I make are directly comparable. In other words it is a choice between differences in kind and not categorical differences.
However, when I really find myself in a position where I have a hard choice to make, it’s never a problem with some simply mental calculation such as above but feels entirely different. The challenge I face is that I’m not making that type of comparison but something more along the lines of choosing between two alternatives that lack a common basis for comparison.
I was thinking a bit about this in a different context a while back. If economic decision theory, at least from a consumer perspective, is all about indifference curves, is that really a decision theory or merely a rule following approach? The real decision arises in the setting where you are in a position of indifference between multiple alternative but economics cannot say anything about that—the answer there is flip a coin/random selection but is that really a rational though process for choice?
But, as I said, I’m not entirely sure I think like other people.