MODERATOR: Who decides whether the object of a trade is to be better off than before the trade, and thus defines what constitutes an error?
I am hearing from several sources that it is simply human nature to try to get more than one had before. You can, of course build that into your model if you wish. But before the model can be taken as significant, you have to show that this desire actually exists, or at least find out what proportion of the people have it. So let me phrase that as a question:
In the model you design, what fraction of the individuals will have as a reference level a continual increase in the amount or quality of goods and services being consumed? And how will you determine what the correct fraction is?
COMMENT: [Martin Lewitt 24 May 2011 1108 MDT]
There is some sort of vacuum at the inferred or hypothesized higher levels of the PCT hierarchy. Perhaps some of the controlled variables are never or rarely at zero error (due to human nature?), and are capable of generating new controlled variables. Was there a controlled variable that was in error, before iPhones existed? What happens when opportunities come into existence that didn't exist before, such as when an opportunity to trade comes into awareness, perhaps when one person meets another with a different distribution of goods? Is there a controlled variable for opportunity that is never satisfied, but always in error? Are there people who are not controlling for or recognizing opportunities?
COMMENT: Bill Powers (2011.05.1055 MDT)]
In an undisturbed state, a control system maintains its controlled variable just near enough to the reference level to produce just enough error, and thus just enough output, to maintain the controlled variable in that state. The amount of error that remains at equilibrium depends on the loop gain; the higher the loop gain, the less the amount of error that remains.
To answer the question about iPhones, we must know what controlled variable is brought closer to its reference level by owning one. An obvious one is freedom of communication; another one is a relationship to peers ("everybody else has one..."). There may be simple aesthetic desires for neat technology. If all these reference levels were already being matched perfectly by actual perceptions, iPhones would not be purchased or wanted. So obtaining an iPhone is a means of satisfying some unsatisfied higher-level goal. The higher the loop gain at the upper level, the more effort a person would produce (the more the person would be willing to pay or work) to get one.
One hypothesis that is often mentioned is that there is always a shortage of what people want, so there is no limit to how much they will want to acquire or enjoy. This same situation can be induced in rats by causing lesions in the hypothalamus which prevent the fullness or taste signals that result from eating from reaching the control systems for eating. The result is a grossly obese rat who will eat everything offered and work for it if necessary until it dies. No matter how much it eats, it is always hungry.
Normal rats eat only a specific amount each day, the amount needed to create and then maintain a specific body weight. If food is arbitrarily added to the rat's intake (via a gastric tube), the rat will reduce its rate of food-producing behavior and keep its weight from increasing. Removing food will result in more behavior. This is normal behavior for a control system.
It is often said that goals become less attractive and even repulsive once they are achieved. That, too, is normal behavior for a control system. The conclusion suggested by all these observations is that a person who always and acutely needs more or better things has a defect in some control system so errors are never brought down to a sustainable level. Of course in a normal system there is always a gradual reorganization going on to reduce the total error in the hierarchy as a whole, so some degree of continuing effort to reduce error is to be expected. But a person whose desire for more continues as if nothing can ever satisfy it no matter how much is acquired or consumed is in a pathological state, a state of psychological obesity just as harmful as what we see increasingly in people who have this same problem with food. Great wealth, for example, is probably a type of psychological obesity, though of course it could simply be inherited money or resources.
However, we need data behind these conjectures, and models can certainly include a provision for having some people or even all people behave in any way one wants to assume. People do often act as if they can't get enough, and one hesitates to say that every one is crazy but thee and me, and sometimes I wonders about thee. But insatiable desires don't sound to me like a healthy state of affairs, so I'd like to see the matter cleared up -- but not by just assuming things without testing.
Best,
Bill P.
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Best,
Bill P.
Best
Adam