“More than a dozen studies show that the subjective utility of different goods or actions are encoded on a common scale…Moreover, the brain tracks forecasted and experienced value, probably for the purpose of learning… Finally, subjective value is learned via iterative updating (after experience)…”
As well as some interesting conclusions, such as “In particular, you should subject yourself to novel and challenging activities regularly throughout your life. Doing so keeps your dopamine (motivation) system flowing, because novel and challenging circumstances drive you to act and find solutions, which in turn leads to greater satisfaction than do ‘lazy’ pleasures like sleeping and eating.”
I guess it’s nothing new in a sense, but it’s still exciting to see the actual processes underlying all of this.
Yes I understand that, but what did he mean when he was saying that he gives them money and they just keep it all - did he mean that they weren’t upholding their side of a particular bargain (i.e. they were fraudulent)?
EDIT: I originally took it to mean that they felt that they could not trust others with their money - but this is not the only possible conclusion from the fact that people don’t spend their money.
Does LessWrong.com link to each of those studies? Are they even publicly available so that we can all examine their methodologies if we wish?
That said, I’m not surprised that there’s a (broadly) common scale for utility. For such a thing as “human nature” to be recognized, there have to be commonalities among all or nearly all humans. Otherwise, communication and the division of labor would be impossible.
I disagree with the notion that subjective value is learned. To me that suggests it’s not subjective at all, but that there are “right” and “wrong” values - which implies objectivity, not subjectivity. A more accurate way to put it, IMO, is that people revise their subjective valuations of things on an iterative/experiential basis.
I think there’s an instinctive drive in at least some people to do just this. After all, people don’t like to be bored. Doing the same thing repeatedly for long periods of time can certainly become boring. I myself seem to have a strong tendency to seek out novel and challenging activities - at least on an intellectual level.
