Reviews for Economic Theory and Cognitive Science: Microexplanation

The average rating for Economic Theory and Cognitive Science: Microexplanation based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-06-10 00:00:00 Ashleigh Graham I was a bit conflicted regarding how to rate this book. On one hand, it has been hugely influential for me and the way I think about science. On the other hand, being hugely influential on an undergrad is so easy it probably wouldn't even be worth an achievement point on Xbox Live. A year and a half ago I would have been hugely influenced by a ham sandwich if someone had written an equation on it with mustard. Secondly, part of why it has had such a big impact on me is the fact that it is about very big, very fascinating issues that are of great interest to me, but which I have not actually read much about outside of... well, this book. The book deals with many topics, but the central question that Don Ross grapples with is that of the self, and what exactly cognitive science, evolution, and microeconomic theory have to say about what it is. Despite knowing non-negligible amounts about each of those topics, my education is mostly restricted to the nitty-gritty stuff you learn as an undergrad and as part of the day-to-day research grind, and I had never seen anyone weave together the big ideas of the disciplines on such a grand scale. However, few of the ideas in the book are entirely new, of course, and someone who was better read in stuff like this would probably be less wowed than I. In conclusion, I think this is a great book, but it's probably less great than I think it is. But enough about me. I should probably talk about the book a bit, huh? As mentioned before, the book draws on microeconomic theory, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive science to form an argument about how and why we conceptualize the 'self' the way we do. I won't try to summarize his arguments, as that would take a month, but for readers who are scratching their heads right now, I will try to give a taste of how the three disciplines fit together, and why they are converging both in this book and in the broader scientific literature. First, we have economics, which most people think of as being about taxes and interest rates. But it's not! People don't really know what economics is, least of all economists, but Don Ross makes that case that it is really the science of scarcity. That is, there is a finite amount of resources in the world, and an effectively infinite demand for them. What do agents do about it? That, according to Don Ross, is the true domain of economics. This is also what has ended up binding economics -- quite accidentally! -- to evolution and the life sciences. Scarcity, after all, is the fundamental problem of life. If there were an infinite amount of food around, an infinite amount of time for organisms to reproduce and infinite space for them to occupy, then fitness would not matter and there would be no natural selection. But scarcity exists, and thus relative fitness influences which organisms and organic structures end up propagating. And after billions of years of competition we get the human brain, which is the domain of the cognitive sciences. Using over 100 years of ideas and research from each of these fields, Ross investigates what all of these fields tell us about what the human brain is, why it is the way it is, and, most of all, what it means about our intuitive concept of the 'self' that are so deeply ingrained in us yet has no clear scientific meaning. Which is all well and good, but first you have to figure out what the hell he is talking about. This is very much not a book for the general public, as the profoundly un-catchy title makes clear, but even for those with doctorates in one (or even more!) of the relevant fields, this book is a dense slog at best. It is so laden with unexplained jargon, unnecessary verbiage, and general vagueness that it is impossible to discriminate between the ideas that are confusing because they are complex, because they are under-explained, or because they just make no goddamn sense from the beginning. In one delightfully ironic passage, Ross reprimands his fellow philosophers for not laying out their ideas in real, feasible, grant-worthy experiments (a noble sentiment!), and then proceeds to give the most baffling, incomprehensible experiment proposal that I have ever seen. That shit would have gotten an F as a Psych 101 paper. This major shortcoming aside, does Ross accomplish his goal? Does he offer anything new and useful to the scientific literature? I think so, but only time and much research will tell whether the ideas in this book prove scientifically useful. He occasionally overreaches and makes some fairly bizarre claims, but given that Ross is a philosopher by training it is surprised he didn't do so more often. Most of what he says is grounded in real, hard science, while at the same time he goes beyond the obvious textbook interpretations of the results to engage with big questions in a way that scientists usually do not. In this way, Ross successfully creates a cohesive, compelling, and empirically-sturdy framework for thinking about the mind and brain. FYI, anyone interesting in topics should probably check out Daniel Dennett's writings before tackling this sucker. Much of the evolution and philosophy in this book is drawn wholesale or with minor twists from Dennett, and I hear that Dennett is actually a good writer!

Review # 2 was written on 2008-12-20 00:00:00 Mario Leggs This was a lecture that Russell wrote during the first world war, and thus, contained vital tokens of his political thought along with romantic language he used to encourage. I chose to read this because I am endlessly interested in Russell's critique of BOTH ideologies of conservatism and socialism. In these pages, one can find Russell's explicit denunciation of capitalism and the wage system (as he calls for it to be abolished) as well as his complete disregard for any form social organization resembling anarchy. He makes sweeping phycological observations about human nature (narrowing our desires down as humans to either Possessive vs. Creative) as well as unsubstantiated sociological observations about human interactions. Russell also does not find time to punctuate which institutions he feels are necessary or which aren't which could contribute effectively to his argument. As a statist and a liberal, Russell does little to add to contemporary thought regarding social democracy or welfare state promotion and instead perpetuates thinking along the lines of John Locke and Wilhelm Von Humboldt. The only difference, and its the reason why I love to read anything Russell wrote, is that he uses such beautiful, hopeful language for his visions of a future society. In short but poignant sections, he always finds conclusive sentences to mark this eloquent departure: "There can be no final goal for human institutions; the best are those that most encourage progress toward others still better. Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active" (17).