funkshen
dvds didnt exist in 1991
hey guys, economics as the study of cause and effect in the production, allocation and consumption of real resources can't explain god or heaven.I think you are missing my point some intangible concepts are not deciscions, they just occur, or have no relevance on deciscions.
Look, I know some people seem to have this intense desire to be able to explain, measure and categorise everything in life (as a statistician I am accutely aware of that). But it isn't always so. I think to argue the economy, or economics is some science that can explain, measure and account for anything in the universe not only laughable but also a little bit sad.
To take the most intangible concepts there are, God and Heaven, how can economics account for them? Sure, I accept it can attempt to account for their influence on humans - but those things themselves - if they exist - economics can't possible adequately measure who or what god is, or what heaven may or may not be. To go back to a more agreeable intangible concept of love, I for once second don't accept that Love itself is a deciscion, or that economics can account for it beyond some crude accounting method. Edit: love is more than the sum total of the effects it has on my deciscions.
oh wait, it can (try to)
you're attacking a strawman of what the economic mode of thinking is.
1) no one is saying some decisions aren't (quasi)autonomic. indeed, the (irony?) of rational choice economics is that the decision between outcomes (that are known in advance i.e. no uncertainty) are predetermined. you have a set of preferences (that are transitive, complete and continuous) that you satisfy, consciously or not. so really, there isn't much choice at all, which is probably closer to the truth than any economist would like to admit. as a result, love can easily be considered within this framework, albeit imperfectly. no one except an autist would claim otherwise. economics is simply a model for understanding the world around us and what we do in it (and, you know, most of what we do is patently economic.)
2) economics isn't measurement (although measurement is obviously a crucial component of the economic epistemology).
im sorry if this is your smoking gun in favour of whatever half baked transcendental idealism you're espousing.
Last edited: