Where are the Golden Fleece awards when we need them

CSGnet Archive CSG2005
1

[From Rick Marken (2005.05.10.2150)]

On the PBS News Hour this evening there was a report on some economic research that is going on right in my backyard here at Ucla. The researchers are doing brain scans of people while they make economic decisions, like buying and selling stuff. The big discovery is that the amygdala (called the "lizard brain" in the report) lights up as much or more than the cortex when people make these decisions. This has led economists to the startling conclusion that people are not as rational as economists had assumed they were.

What was amazing to me about this research was not just that it wass being done, but that someone was paying big bucks to support it. Would that people would pay that kind of money to support some nice, clear PCT research done. But, then, PCT doesn't produce all those cool, multicolor MRI images.

Ah, well.

Best

Rick

···

---
Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

2

[From Don Hemminger]

So did they surmise from that research that the "Lizard Brain" is also
the "Economic Brain"? That could either explains why some financial
advisers are so low down and cold blooded, or why Lizards own all the
Lake Front property ;o)

The only thing that really explains is that people are very nervous and
unsure when it comes to financial matters, which may be totally
appropriate and sane.

Don

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU] On Behalf Of Rick Marken
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 12:51 AM
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
Subject: [CSGNET] Where are the Golden Fleece awards when we need them

[From Rick Marken (2005.05.10.2150)]

On the PBS News Hour this evening there was a report on some economic
research that is going on right in my backyard here at Ucla. The
researchers are doing brain scans of people while they make economic
decisions, like buying and selling stuff. The big discovery is that the
amygdala (called the "lizard brain" in the report) lights up as much or
more than the cortex when people make these decisions. This has led
economists to the startling conclusion that people are not as rational
as economists had assumed they were.

What was amazing to me about this research was not just that it wass
being done, but that someone was paying big bucks to support it. Would
that people would pay that kind of money to support some nice, clear PCT
research done. But, then, PCT doesn't produce all those cool, multicolor
MRI images.

Ah, well.

Best

Rick
---
Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

3

[From Bryan Thalhammer (2005.05.10.1000 CDT)]

Rick,

Interesting, we have lizard-brains controlling our economic future...? Oh gosh.

Seriously, though, a person undergoing conflict, going up a level, reorganizing,
and controlling during a Test might be able to be scanned in an MRI, right?

I have no idea about the locales/paths of perceptual, reference, or output
signals, but it might be interesting to see what lights up when certain observed
events we identify in PCT take place.

I have a hunch it would be a money-making opportunity... Oh dang, there goes my
amygdala again....!

Cheers,

--Bryan

···

[Rick Marken (2005.05.10.2150)]

On the PBS News Hour this evening there was a report on some economic
research that is going on right in my backyard here at Ucla. The
researchers are doing brain scans of people while they make economic
decisions, like buying and selling stuff. The big discovery is that
the amygdala (called the "lizard brain" in the report) lights up as
much or more than the cortex when people make these decisions. This has
led economists to the startling conclusion that people are not as
rational as economists had assumed they were.

What was amazing to me about this research was not just that it wass
being done, but that someone was paying big bucks to support it. Would
that people would pay that kind of money to support some nice, clear
PCT research done. But, then, PCT doesn't produce all those cool,
multicolor MRI images.

Ah, well.

Best

Rick
---
Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

4

There is some similar goings on reported by Malcolm Gladwell in his new
book, Blink. As I read Blink, I thought how neatly PCT explains the
"mysteries" Gladwell was writing about. Maybe a genuine PCTer ought to do a
review of Gladwell's book.

Regards,

Fred Nickols
www.nickols.us
nickols@att.net

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Marken
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 12:51 AM
To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu
Subject: Where are the Golden Fleece awards when we need them

[From Rick Marken (2005.05.10.2150)]

On the PBS News Hour this evening there was a report on some economic
research that is going on right in my backyard here at Ucla. The
researchers are doing brain scans of people while they make economic
decisions, like buying and selling stuff. The big discovery is that
the amygdala (called the "lizard brain" in the report) lights up as
much or more than the cortex when people make these decisions. This has
led economists to the startling conclusion that people are not as
rational as economists had assumed they were.

What was amazing to me about this research was not just that it wass
being done, but that someone was paying big bucks to support it. Would
that people would pay that kind of money to support some nice, clear
PCT research done. But, then, PCT doesn't produce all those cool,
multicolor MRI images.

Ah, well.

Best

Rick
---
Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

5

[From Rick Marken (2005.05.11.0930)]

Don Hemminger--

The only thing that really explains is that people are very nervous and
unsure when it comes to financial matters, which may be totally
appropriate and sane.

Bryan Thalhammer (2005.05.10.1000 CDT)--

Seriously, though, a person undergoing conflict, going up a level,
reorganizing, and controlling during a Test might be able to be
scanned in an MRI, right?

I have no idea about the locales/paths of perceptual, reference, or
output signals, but it might be interesting to see what lights up
when certain observed events we identify in PCT take place.

Thanks, both of you, for replying to my cryptic little post.

I guess what really blew me away about this report was all the money being
spent on research that is so obviously worthless. Studying any behavior
(economic or not) using brain scans is like studying computer programs by
measuring the heat output at different points on the computer chip. What you
learn about the behavior of people or computer programs from this kind of
research is almost nothing. What I believe this kind of research gives
people is what Mary Powers called "understandingness". I think this is also
the reason it such research can get funded. The research makes it seem like
you understand something just becuase you can associate a behavior (like
buying or selling commodities) with activity in a particular area of the
brain.

But what do you really know from this research other than that the behavior
is associated with activity in one area of the brain rather than another?
It's really pretty low level understanding, sort of like the understanding
you get from knowing that a person is a Pisces rather than an Aries. If you
think of the research in terms of learning which part of a computer chip
heats up most when a certain computer program is running you can see clearly
how little understanding this kind of research provides. How much more do
you know about how the program that calculates your taxes works when you
find out that it heats up the area close to the lower left part of the
computer chip more than the upper right part. Even when you find that
another program, one that calculates the orbit of a satellite, perhaps,
heats up the area close to the upper right part of the chip, you don't
really know all that much more about how the tax and satellite programs
actually work.

I think the brain scan research is a waste of money that could be spent on
research that could actually help us understand economic behavior. And that,
of course, would be research based on the best model of economic (and all
other) behavior that we have so far, PCT. But, of course, PCT is still not
trendy.

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

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