Neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert starts from a surprising premise: the brain evolved, not to think or feel, but to control movement. In this entertaining, data-rich talk he gives us a glimpse into how the brain creates the grace and agility of human motion.
Saturday, 3 December 2011
David Friedman on Behavioral Economics: Intriguing Research Project, with Reservations
David D. Friedman is Professor of Law at Santa Clara University
I have long argued that the economic assumption of rationality is useful not because it is a complete and correct description of real world behavior but because it describes that part of behavior that is predictable. If half the time an individual takes the actions that best achieve his goals and half the time he acts at random, then modeling his behavior as rational with some random error probably does as good a job of predicting it as we can do. When dealing not with a single individual but with the aggregated affects of many individual actions, random actions will tend to cancel out, making the predictions of a rational actor model more accurate than they would be for a single actor. Further, in some but not all cases, the actors that most matter are precisely those selected for successful decisions in the past—successful speculators, for example, have more money to speculate with and so a larger effect on markets, than unsuccessful ones.
David Levine on Behavioral Economics: The Good, the Bad and the Middle Ground
David K. Levine is John H. Biggs Distinguished Professor of Economics
at Washington University in St. Louis.
Behavioral economics: love it or hate it – there seems to be no middle ground. Lovers take the obvious fact people are not frictionless maximizing machines together with the false premise that economists assume that they are to conclude that all of economics must be wrong. The haters take the equally obvious fact that laboratories are not the real world to dismiss all laboratory evidence that conflicts with their pet theories as irrelevant. In the end they seem primarily to talk past each other.
Behavioral Economics an Idiosyncratic Perspective
Having started my career as an experimental economist I probably have a little different, but I hope complimentary, perspective on behavioral economics and other experimental programs in general.
I view the difference between experimental and behavioral economics in terms of (1) what is studied, and (2) how it is studied. Experimental economists are interested in institutional and organizational rules and how these rules affect both, the joint behavior of participants, and the outcome generating, or process, performance of the institutional rules in question. To study this the experimental economist induces preferences and implements a microeconomic system.
I view the difference between experimental and behavioral economics in terms of (1) what is studied, and (2) how it is studied. Experimental economists are interested in institutional and organizational rules and how these rules affect both, the joint behavior of participants, and the outcome generating, or process, performance of the institutional rules in question. To study this the experimental economist induces preferences and implements a microeconomic system.
Friday, 2 December 2011
What is neuroeconomics?
Neuroeconomics is the use of data on brain processes to suggest new underpinnings for economic theories, which explain how much people save, why there are strikes, why the stock market fluctuates, the nature of consumer confidence and its effect on the economy, and so forth.
Until recently, economists have always been content to treat the human brain as a "black box" and suggest mathematical equations which simplify what the brain is doing. Most empirical studies of economic behavior have therefore relied on measuring inputs, like prices, and predicting outputs, like how much people will buy, from a simplified theory of brain processes. This approach reflects a bias traceable to the 1880’s, when Jevons wrote “I hesitate it is impossible to measure the feelings of the human heart”.
Until recently, economists have always been content to treat the human brain as a "black box" and suggest mathematical equations which simplify what the brain is doing. Most empirical studies of economic behavior have therefore relied on measuring inputs, like prices, and predicting outputs, like how much people will buy, from a simplified theory of brain processes. This approach reflects a bias traceable to the 1880’s, when Jevons wrote “I hesitate it is impossible to measure the feelings of the human heart”.
The NeuroEconomicS Revolution
Much of modern economic and financial theory is based on the assumption that people are rational, says author.
New Haven, CT - Economics is at the start of a revolution that is traceable to an unexpected source: medical schools and their research facilities. Neuroscience - the science of how the brain, that physical organ inside one's head, really works - is beginning to change the way we think about how people make decisions. These findings will inevitably change the way we think about how economies function. In short, we are at the dawn of "neuroeconomics".
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Yes, We Are Zombies, But We Can Become Conscious!
The Journal of Consciousness Studies Symposium on Todd C. Moody's "Conversations with Zombies"
In seeking to explore the elusive nature of consciousness, philosophers have sometimes resorted to "thought experiments," much as physicists do when thinking about the enigmas of relativity. Todd C. Moody, associate professor in philosophy at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, recently contributed a paper to The Journal of Consciousness Studies <http://www.zynet.co.uk/imprint> in which he proposed such a thought experiment. Professor Moody's ideas sparked a lively debate in the on-line discussion forum of the Journal, and led to a published Symposium <http://www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/jcs_2_4.html> on the subject of his paper which was entitled, "Conversations with Zombies" . (JCS, 1, (2), pp. 196-200, available at <http://www.zynet.co.uk/imprint>)
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