Economics Questions

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

nirgrahamUK — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:06:14 GMT

laminustacitus:

nirgrahamUK:

laminustacitus:
If action were only defined with the application of means to bring about a future world, then all of life would be one action,

of course it would not. this is a fallacy.

Actually, its a reductio ad absurdam showing that action needs to be aimed at a definite ends rather than a future world.

as a reductio it fails, because its a fallacy. you cant use a fallacy to show how the consequences of someones position dont play out favourably. you must use valid reasoning to do such things.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

nirgrahamUK — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:04:53 GMT

laminustacitus:
Or you can be doing the two actions seperately by applying two different means to two different ends.

are you doing it coordinatedly or not?

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

laminustacitus — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:53:21 GMT

Lilburne:
If your phone rings, and the choice of stopping or continuing your walk doesn't even cross your mind, and only whether or not to answer the call crosses your mind, then answering the phone is the only action at hand, and there is no synchronism.

Or you decide to keep walking while doing the action of answering your phone.

Lilburne:
This is the case because of the following: If an actor chooses A over B, B over C, and C over A, all at the exact same time, that would seem irrationally inconsistent.

That is nevertheless still not a case against doing two actions at once, it merely states that two diametrical actions cannot be done at once. Nevertheless, choosing A over B is completely different from choosing B over C the three can have different values with respect to each other. For instance, I can decide that I prefer A over B because A is more valuable than B, but still I can choose B over C since B is more valuable than C; since the two are independent actions, there is nothing irrational about such actions.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

laminustacitus — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:47:24 GMT

nirgrahamUK:
you are going to throw away your walking to the park, and just stand there listening to your ipod, or you will combine your two compatible desires under the one banner and walk and listen.

Or you can be doing the two actions seperately by applying two different means to two different ends.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

laminustacitus — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:45:38 GMT

ladyattis:
Iam, still the motion of changing songs on an Ipod do not become an efficient cause of the motion through the park. Unless you got some fancy physics or causal argument up your sleeves. o_O

Because they are two different actions, I do not see how this relates to what I've said.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

laminustacitus — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:44:44 GMT

nirgrahamUK:

laminustacitus:
If action were only defined with the application of means to bring about a future world, then all of life would be one action,

of course it would not. this is a fallacy.

Actually, its a reductio ad absurdam showing that action needs to be aimed at a definite ends rather than a future world.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

leonidia — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:32:51 GMT

nirgrahamUK:
you must apply your criticism to all alternatives before using your criticism as a criteria to disregard the alternative that you favour the least.

Uh?!

To answer my own question, I would say this. (I'm trying to agree with you here) Profit and loss is psychic, ordinal, and not measurable. Profit and losses from individual actions cannot be summed. I can't say I like going for a walk twice as much as going to the movies, for example, or that going to the movies is more fun than the sum of the fun I get from two individual actions. (I can say, however, that going to the movies is more fun than a single action consisting of two behaviors.)

Let's suppose it's true that there are a virtually unlimited number of profit and loss assessments that must be made in our lives, ex ante. But the way we keep track of things is after the fact, ex post. It may be that ex post when we assess what we liked and what we didn't, we view our actions differently. So ex post I can look back at my walk as one action, disregarding the talking on the phone and the million other little things I did at the time, and say "yes, I liked going for a walk better than reading a book or whatever"

Does this make sense?

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

nirgrahamUK — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:23:33 GMT

leonidia:
So let's say this is true. How can you keep track of what works in life and what doesn't? How can you figure the profit or loss of say, just walking to the park, by itself, when all you've got to measure it by is the sum of an infinite number of infinitesimally small profit and losses of combined behaviors?

how would it work if you had actions that lasted longer, but necessarily had fewer of them.? you must apply your criticism to all alternatives before using your criticism as a criteria to disregard the alternative that you favour the least.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

leonidia — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:23:04 GMT

nirgrahamUK:
thank you attis, that is a more elegant way of saying what i have failed to communicate effecitvely. when one acts, one is setting out to employ means, (and not employ other means) to achieve an end,(and forego the achievement of other ends) . as such at the point where you begin to want to switch ipod songs, either, you are going to throw away your walking to the park, and just stand there listening to your ipod, or you will combine your two compatible desires under the one banner and walk and listen.

Ok let's suppose that actions do run consecutively, so for example, we have walking, followed by walking and talking, followed by walking, taking and turning my head, followed by just walking, etc. Each one of these is a complete action, so for example "walking, talking and turning my head" is one action, and three observable behaviors, but not three simultaneous actions. If we accept this, it seems to me there's an infinite number of consecutive actions that run consecutively (but never simultaneously). Every time you changed something, (even the tiniest thing that involves a thought) you would have ended the previous action and started a completely new one. Your whole life becomes a series of infinitesimally small actions; just the slightest change in anything ends any previous action COMPLETELY and precipitates a new one. And each of these actions involves its own means/goal analysis, its own value scale, its own profit/loss. Is this what you're getting at?

So let's say this is true. How can you keep track of what works in life and what doesn't? How can you figure the profit or loss of say, just walking to the park, by itself, when all you've got to measure it by is the sum of an infinite number of infinitesimally small profit and losses of combined behaviors?

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

Daniel James Sanchez — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:54:28 GMT

For me, the most useful conception of "action" is the embarkation of a behavior which executes a deliberate choice: in other words an execution of will. This behavior can either be "doing something" or "intentionally not doing something". When you first consider taking a walk, then choose to, and then actually begin to, that beginning, impelled by the choosing, is the action. Continuing to walk is only an action if at any point it even crosses your mind whether to stop or continue. If your phone rings, and the choice of stopping or continuing your walk doesn't even cross your mind, and only whether or not to answer the call crosses your mind, then answering the phone is the only action at hand, and there is no synchronism.

I don't think it's possible for one conscious mind to make two conscious decisions at the exact same time; and it is the decisive part of action that necessarily must be nonsynchronous for Austrian value scale theory to make sense. This is the case because of the following: If an actor chooses A over B, B over C, and C over A, all at the exact same time, that would seem irrationally inconsistent. The Misesian contention would be that all action is rational, since nobody ever could make all 3 choices at the same time. These three choices must be made in succession; and between the instants of the first choice and the third choice, the actor's value scale has, by definition, changed.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

nirgrahamUK — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:22:37 GMT

thank you attis, that is a more elegant way of saying what i have failed to communicate effecitvely. when one acts, one is setting out to employ means, (and not employ other means) to achieve an end,(and forego the achievement of other ends) . as such at the point where you begin to want to switch ipod songs, either, you are going to throw away your walking to the park, and just stand there listening to your ipod, or you will combine your two compatible desires under the one banner and walk and listen.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

ladyattis — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:18:32 GMT

Iam, still the motion of changing songs on an Ipod do not become an efficient cause of the motion through the park. Unless you got some fancy physics or causal argument up your sleeves. o_O

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

nirgrahamUK — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:16:36 GMT

laminustacitus:
If action were only defined with the application of means to bring about a future world, then all of life would be one action,

of course it would not. this is a fallacy.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

laminustacitus — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:12:25 GMT

nirgrahamUK:

lam, please try to address the points.

with all this walking and ipodding.

how many future worlds are you bringing about. many or one ?

The two actions are related to the future in two independent ways. They are both aimed at creating one future world, but they have different ends. If action were only defined with the application of means to bring about a future world, then all of life would be one action, but it is not, action is orientated in a means-end framework, not a means-future world framework.

In the example, I am aiming at two different ends, and those different ends all relate to the same future world differently.

Re: The Temporal Relation Between Actions

ladyattis — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:05:44 GMT

I think Mises means that when one considers achieving some end, then the given actions as such will be coordinated as such. In the case of walking through a park while changing songs on your Ipod, these two occur in sequence in relation to one and other as neither preempts each other. So one can assume from an outsider point of view that both actions can be seen as one, with walking through the park subsuming the changing of songs on an Ipod into itself as walking is still the primary method of achieving a perceived end: moving through space. As such, Mises thoughts might be considered a little loose in terms or framework, but the idea itself seems sound to me.