At the meeting this evening we looked at a TED talk by Dan Gilbert. If you could not attend, look at, Exploring the frontiers of happiness on ted.com.
The main focus of the discussion was that people make errors in predicting the odds that they will succeed at something and errors in predicting the value (how much they gain) of that endeavor. Most of the talk is based around Bernoulli's formula which is that the expected value of something is equal to the odds of the gain multiplied by the value of gain.
From the discussion we gained that, "we underestimate the odds of our future pains and overestimate the value of our present pleasures." We concluded that in order to gain a consistent Bernoulli approach to choices we would need to institute training and practice and it was suggested that RELIGION has done this very well.
From a psychological standpoint, we examined the nature of "Illusions of the Temporal Perspective," discussing the idea that people believe more is better, and it's best for them when they can get it NOW, but we should recognize reality and not deceive ourselves into finding short-lived gratification in present pleasure tasks.
From an economic standpoint we do this with the lottery and many other things that involve saving, spending, or investing money. But as a devil's advocate, Prospect Theory points out that these things depend on how much money you have. Still it is a psychological and economically swayed choice.
The main focus of the discussion was that people make errors in predicting the odds that they will succeed at something and errors in predicting the value (how much they gain) of that endeavor. Most of the talk is based around Bernoulli's formula which is that the expected value of something is equal to the odds of the gain multiplied by the value of gain.
From the discussion we gained that, "we underestimate the odds of our future pains and overestimate the value of our present pleasures." We concluded that in order to gain a consistent Bernoulli approach to choices we would need to institute training and practice and it was suggested that RELIGION has done this very well.
From a psychological standpoint, we examined the nature of "Illusions of the Temporal Perspective," discussing the idea that people believe more is better, and it's best for them when they can get it NOW, but we should recognize reality and not deceive ourselves into finding short-lived gratification in present pleasure tasks.
From an economic standpoint we do this with the lottery and many other things that involve saving, spending, or investing money. But as a devil's advocate, Prospect Theory points out that these things depend on how much money you have. Still it is a psychological and economically swayed choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment