From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 07:06:48 MDT
At 09:00 PM 6/15/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>All right. So no Bayesians per se exist, but it's an ideal
>that one speaks about, such as "rational". No exactly rational
>people exist either. But for rational, we are able to reasonably
>assert that, for example, one nation's population is more rational
>than another nations (on perhaps a particular restriction). But I
>don't get the parallel for "Bayesian". I use Bayes theorem a lot
>in solving ... problems, ... So who is more Bayesian than I am?
>What is the utility that you and the researchers find in referring
>to a class of such agents by that description?
If you can't compare how Bayesian people are, how could you say
one nation is more rational than another? "Rational" tends to be
pretty vague and hard to pin down. "Bayesian" is intended to be a
more specific version of "rational" that you can pin down and
compare to behavior more easily. You have a lot more behavior than
just solving problems posed on the list, and economists constantly
compare common human behavior to models of what Bayesians would do
in such situations. It is often a struggle to find Bayesian models
that account for common human behaviors.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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