For how long does an individual’s value scale direct his near-term actions, do you suppose? At what point does he form a new one?
Are there a number (a multiplicity?) of value scales in operation at any given moment, or just a single one?
I wanted to respond to this, but then I didn’t… less than a second later, I decided to post after all. Does that help?
What about your long term goals? How are they accounted for, to the extent that they are really important to you, and therefore direct many of your short term decisions?
Well, I did come back to read how you would respond. Does that help you?
There is no ans
There is no answer. it is a part of the dark problems misesians do not want to confront with. So dont expect to hear an answer here, for there is none, other than ambiguous nondescriptive opinions. I had the thread with a similar idea, and in a multi-page topic no one could articulate what the theory is of action in relation to the time domain and hierarchy of simultaneous actions
Well, I asked you about your long term goals. I take your answer to mean, therefore, that such was your plan. i.e. that coming back to read my response was in your plan.
So this indicates to me you consider your long term goal of returning to read my response as having taken priority at some point in your action.
I’ll buy that.
However, I disagree with you in your belief that your mission to answer my question is now complete. You haven’t accounted for the time in between these: (1) the moment you made the original resolution to return; and (2) the moment you physically initiatied the process of return (for example…perhaps there’s a slightly different moment which could be more appropriate—anyways, I think you understand what I’m getting at.)
Now that I think about it, you haven’t accounted for the moment of resolve either.
---------------------------------------------------------------EDIT: Nevermind. I got it now. Thanks.---------------------------------------------------------------
We can’t, at this point, meaningfully describe the neurological processes which go into forming valuations so we have to speak of valuation as if there is just one value scale. We can’t meaningfully speak of multiple value scales since multiple, conflicting value scales do not form a final value scale which can be acted upon. Nevertheless, it does sometimes feel like you want to have your cake and eat it, too, that is, it feels like there’s multiple sets of valuations inside your own head pulling you this way and that. But at the end of all that tugging and pulling going on in your brain, ultimately some one choice comes out. That choice represents your final valuation, however it was arrived at internally.
Clayton -
There is no answer.---------------------Why not?
It is a part of the dark problems misesians do not want to confront.---------------------------Yea, I agree in the sense that this version of value scale formation through specific lengths of time is NOT discussed.
But, I think it’s just a gap in the theory, to be honest. But, I totally agree with you that this question could stand the application of some theoretical rigor.
I have to stop you right here.
You mean, the neurological processes that go into FORMING valuations, or that go into MAINTAINING them between two specific points in time?
Forming. No scientist can explain how you come to make a choice, that is, the sequence of neurons firing that spits out a certain result. Our only knowledge of how we form decisions is from introspection. We all know how it feels to make choices. Sometimes, choices are easily made. Sometimes, they’re more challenging. I know that doesn’t answer your original question directly but I think if you think about it, you will realize that your original question is mooted once you understand that valuation is not an objective, ordered list that changes over time, it is a fictional device by which we discuss the fact that people hold multiple possible courses of action in their mind until they choose one and, when a course of action is removed from the list of possible course of action, they choose an alternative, and so on. We can speak of the resulting ordered list of choices as if it were a real thing (a person’s “value list”) but with the understanding that it’s not real, it’s just a device for thinking about how people make choices.
Clayton -
Tell me about it, I should be doing project work and instead I’m reading the Mises forum, all the time thinking “I really should be doing this work…” Procrastination is a (insert some random expletive)
Thanks. This is a great point.
So, the real question then is something else. I’ll make a new post to keep things clear. Thanks again. Very helpful.
Seems simple… Value scales affect decisions as long as you have them and they evolve constantly.
Rant useless rant to someone who cares.
This is probably only a semantic quibble on my part, but I was under the impression that it was the other way around - decisions affect value scales. As in people don’t carry around value scales and act according to them they can only be created after observations of someone’s actions. They are only a thinking tool for economics, making useful if-then statements about values and then deducing laws from there. I think Clayton answers this so well in his second post that I didn’t really need to post but I’m trying to clear up my own thoughts too!
To answer to your original question, I think it is important to get away from the idea of value scales as a kind of fixed floating thing in people’s heads like the neoclassicals do with indifference curves. They are a means of elaborating a certain characteristic of action, that is its marginal nature derived from the principle of action and the quantitative relations between means and ends, as well as scarcity.
For any given action we can’t know how far into the future an actor was aiming its implications by simply observing it. This is a task for historical understanding. How far into the future an action of an individual can aim depends on his general time horizon (kind of like an upper bound for his period of provision). Rothbard mentions this in MES, but all too briefly without going into much detail.
Thanks. Yea, it seems to me that the formation and execution of AN action is the subject typically (overwhelmingly) discussed in Austrian theory. Which is awesome, and the analysis is extremely persuasive and insightful. On the other hand, it seems that the formation and execution of SEQUENTIAL actions is not often discussed. This is where I was getting hung up—I was thinking in terms of what “happens” to the value scale during sequential actions, as if value scales as, as you say, are “fixed and floating”. In other words, I was thinking of value scales as sustaining through time, when in fact they exist only at the moment of choice, if they “exist” at all. That is, the actor chooses in the moment, and that which is chosen motivates action, whereas that which is forgone is not again considered until the next moment of choice, if ever. At least, this is how I now understand it.
Also keep in mind that with every action you undertake, your value scale will change, because the action you undertook will have satisfied some values, and left other values gone unsatisfied for a period of time. Therefore even independently of the fact that we continually fight within our mind about what to do next, a value scale is never fixed and constant because any action will move things around.
How often do you think?
That should lead you to the answer you seek.