This seemingly intractable question is easy enough to answer if you are an academic economist. All you need do is simply assume your answer is yes. But is this any way to search for truth? Doesn’t the economic approach fail the falsification test?
Image courtesy of baby Adys Ann.
Live A Visible Life Whatever Your Health
Gold, Silver, & Cryptocurrency Markets
"if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things" Php 4:8
"I have enough time to rest, but I don't have a minute to waste". Come and catch me with your wise words and we will have some fun with our words of wisdom.
Philosophical thought from an amateur and armchair thinker. No expertise, just speculation.
⛩️Il tempio della cultura nerd⛩️
~Poems+Hysteria~
Thank you all to support my Blog. God bless us all. keep safe everyone!
In Conversation with Legal and Moral Philosophers
Trying to dig out from minus a million points
Relitigating Our Favorite Disputes
PhD, Jagiellonian University
Never Change
Practical Daily Devotions for the Real World
My review of hot sauces, my favorite peppers, and other stuff...
IN MEMORY EVERYTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN TO MUSIC -Tennessee Williams
Inquiry and opinion
gehadsjourney.wordpress.com
Welcome to the online home of the IASS
A promise to change your outlook about the entire universe.😉
Viewing the world with a different vision!
Philosophy is all about being curious, asking basic questions. And it can be fun!
Books, papers, and other jurisprudential things
Ramblings of a retiree in France
Entertaining and informing... I think
A journey into the labyrinth of my sceptical mind.
Read to Re-Activate your Thoughts
Obsession driven to infinity
BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH
Natalia's space
hoping we know we're living the dream
Lover of math. Bad at drawing.
Photos and Writing
Blog about economic history & comparative development
We hike, bike, and discover Central Florida and beyond
A blog about economics, politics and the random interests of forty-something professors
Making it big in business after age 40
Reasoning about reasoning, mathematically.
I don't mean to sound critical, but I am; so that's how it comes across
Your muse for all things beautiful.
remember the good old days...
"Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences." - Sylvia Plath
Neuroscience and psychology news and views.
a personal view of the theory of computation
Logic at Columbia University
prior probability 
Dear PriorProbability,
What are Utility Functions?
Thank you for the beautiful image of baby Adys Ann
Great question. In economics, a “utility function” is a way of modeling the behavior of consumers. The idea here in words is that a consumer has limited resources (e.g. income), so he must make choices in order to “maximize” the things he really values the most. Go back to my baby example. What are the things that an infant wants to maximize? Presumably, a baby wants to maximize such things as mother’s milk, siestas, clean nappies, and love & affection … But how can we model a baby’s utility function over these things when babies can’t make their own choices? True, a baby has a few ways of expressing her preferences, such as by crying and smiling, but then we run up against the problem of fake crying!
Addendum: here is a good 5-minute tutorial on utility functions
Pingback: Economists are not scientists | prior probability
Thank you PriorProbability for your explanation and the tutorial.
So you can’t model a babies behavior because of several things including
1. They can’t make their own choices, and
2. Fake crying
But what about consumers who aren’t making their own choices and consumers who are faking it?
I am currently taking care of my baby so I don’t have time to really learn the video. Once I do I will comment.
I saw the 5-minute video for myself and I will concede that it is very theoretical and abstract (especially the part about monotonicity!) because the video is describing all the implicit assumptions that must be true for utility functions to make sense … in any case, the video provides a good introduction to utility functions and how economists use them …