Feedforward Control

Human Action is designed to alleviate that state of mental tension that exists when one is dissatisfied. Somewhere losts in the mists of time sat a human being cold, wet and hungry and tried to do something about it. This was the first Human Action and we do not know when, or who performed it. What we do know is that over the intervening 5,000 years of written history and 25,000 years of anthropological history that man beyond all other animals has used Human Action to alleviate human misery and suffering which is the default condition of the natural world. Economic cooperation in a market economy has provided the standard of living that is necessary to keep six billion plus human being alive on this small rock.

Humans like all animals can be modelled on some level as a state machine, we have input, we have outputs, and states mental and physical locale. All animals must observe the 3 basic patterns of reproduction, input (eating), and output (excretion). Inputs are nutrients that are essential for maintaining homeostasis, and caloric fuel fior muscular and cognitive processing. What an input is varies by speices, each to their niche so that economy of utliity is maximized in the ecosystem. Outputs also vary by species but all have enteropic waste products which are inputs with the species specific nutrients removed. Reproduction being the third most basic pattern  if it is not observed than an individual genes have zero probability of propagating into the future. These are the fundamental activities.

Somewhere someone realized that food if in abundance could be stored for future consumption. This is the most primitive feedforward control element in the human economy. Economists call this a low time preference behavior. The consumption is delayed to some future time rather than in the current moment. Most animals cannot do this, when food ios available it is consumed until satiation.

A simple model of subsistence would be a graph of the simplest transaction a human being (actor) follows a path to acquire food or some other good that has utility. At the most basic level there is caloric expenditure of search and acquisition. When the acquisition is complete the actor has three choices:

1.  
   1. Immediate consumption for satiation (high time preference)
   2. Storage for future consumption (low time preference)
   3. Trade with another actor (could be either high or low time preference)

If choice #1 is made the actor has traded effort for gratification and the corresponding decrease in the state of mental tension that motviated the path. If #2 a profit has been made which provides capital for the future and is the basic feedforward operation. The last choice #3 can either be high or low time preference depending upon subsequent transactional behavior.