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Framing Human Action In Physics: Valid Reconstruction, Invalid Reduction, Shabnam Mousavi, Shyam Sunder
Framing Human Action In Physics: Valid Reconstruction, Invalid Reduction, Shabnam Mousavi, Shyam Sunder
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We propose framing human action in physics before reaching to biology and social sciences, rearranging the order of their usual deployment. As an example, consider efforts to model altruism that start in a frame of psychological or social attributes such as reciprocity, empathy, and identity. Evolutionary roots might also be used by appeal to survival of the species from biology. Only then the modeler abstracts to work on notations, and to establish relationships using mathematical apparatus from physics. This top-down deployment of principles from various scientific disciplines has generated a body of coherent models, partially generalizable theories, and disagreements. In …
Physical Laws And Human Behavior: A Three-Tier Framework, Shabnam Mousavi, Shyam Sunder
Physical Laws And Human Behavior: A Three-Tier Framework, Shabnam Mousavi, Shyam Sunder
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Social sciences start by looking at the social-psychological attributes of humans to model and explain their observed behavior. However, we suggest starting the study of observed human behavior with the universal laws of physics, e.g., the principle of minimum action. In our proposed three-tier framework, behavior is a manifestation of action driven by physical, biological, and social-psychological principles at the core, intermediate, and top tier, respectively. More broadly, this reordering is an initial step towards building a platform for reorganizing the research methods used for theorizing and modeling behavior. This perspective outlines and illustrates how a physical law can account …
Economics: The Next Physical Science?, J. Doyne Farmer, Martin Shubik, Eric Smith
Economics: The Next Physical Science?, J. Doyne Farmer, Martin Shubik, Eric Smith
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We review an emerging body of work by physicists addressing questions of economic organization and function. We suggest that, beyond simply employing models familiar from physics to economic observables, remarkable regularities in economic data may suggest parts of social order that can usefully be incorporated into, and in turn can broaden, the conceptual structure of physics.