Physics, Philosophy and Phutility
Why do people choose the way they do? How would you react to their choices?
Think of your everyday interactions with people. Your relations with them are based on a continuous give-and-take or exchange. This is the case even with friends. There's almost always a tacit 'I'll do this for you if you do that for me', even if it is not articulated, or even thought of consciously.
And the relationship is, in many ways, a series of those exchanges. There are a select few for whom we would do anything, but for everyone else, there's Mastercard. Something to balance the books, if you will.
There may be a combination of physics and philosophy that fits here. And tomorrow I've got an appointment with my prof to outline an argument about it convincing enough to buy some more time. While the genesis of it lies in physics, especially the mathematical bits, the aim is to have a framework that allows interpretations that fit many of our everyday scenarios.
For example, going back to how we choose, is it a frame of mind that determines what one is going to do that day? Is there merit in the argument that I did all that just because I felt that way? And if so, is there a way to measure how we feel at any given point? Can we direct those states?
Why do we pick political parties? We look for something in them. In return, they too are selling themselves to us. Fundamentally, these are all manifestations of choice.
How do countries pick trading partners? There's probably more to it than just demand and supply. For example, we can say that the US under Obama is now in a different state from the one it was in under Bush. But how does that affect our relations with them?
How do companies advertise? They have to predict what a consumer wants. How do they even choose a consumer? For that matter, how do they choose the product to begin with? It's a cycle. Or a back-and-forth interaction between advertiser and recipient.
Back to economics. How do we set prices? Whether we are marketing goods or even ourselves, we're usually setting a price for our time and effort. Those are based on our assessments of what we're good at, whom we're dealing with and, of course, what we're lucky enough to get. Nevertheless, the assessment leads to a certain behaviour, based on an expectation we have.
Say we're applying for a job. Every interaction with a prospective employer is about putting them in the frame of mind where he or she thinks we're the right person for it. There's a stream of bargaining and adjusting going on, all the time there.
These are disparate examples, mostly lacking coherence, but these scenarios do have something in common. Intuitively, in each case we know that even if we can never really be sure of what can happen, we've got an idea. We've at least got a latent sense of what we must say next, or do next, or what is likely to happen if we say or do.
That is, in more mathematical terms, we've got some sort of probability distribution of various possible choices or events, and a reasonable idea of how relatively likely the various options are.
And that itself is most likely the best we can do. That's all that we may be able to say with conviction, but it's a more accurate guess than assuming that something will happen for sure.
All this is not to mention the fact that sometimes our very act of choosing changes everything. What we seem to be doing, when we're not trying to predict the future, is trying to make sense of the past. All the actions we have already taken need to make sense in relation to each other. It is usually only when they do that the future looks clear.
Choices, interactions, bargaining, a theory of probability borrowed from quantum physics, and a sprinkle of philosophy. But then again, as someone has said (and sung, for that matter), if you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out.
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