Sublime

Standard economics usually assumes forward-looking agents who are intelligent enough to reason their way through any problem. These hypothetical rational agents are a bit like Star Trek’s Mr Spock: They use all available information to make the best possible decision – the one that yields highest utility.

At first glance, it seems strange to think of psychopaths as decision-makers.

If choice architects want to shift behavior and to do so with a nudge, they might be able to achieve this by simply informing people about what others are thinking and doing.

In complexity economics, agents differ and in general lack full knowledge of each other and of the situation they are in. Fundamental uncertainty is therefore the norm; ill-defined problems are the norm; and rationality is not necessarily well defined. Agents explore and learn and adapt and open to novel behavior. Outcomes may not be in

‘If economics isn’t behavioural, I don’t know what the hell is.’

What distinguishes predictive ability is not who the experts are or what they believe, but rather how they think.

In the wise guys method, you look for individuals who can accurately predict how other people will bet, but whose own bet is different. The logic is that if you can predict other people's bets, then you know the common knowledge. But if your opinion is also different than everyone else's, then you must know something they don't.

After all, how plausible is it that the information processing apparatus of a mere primate would have evolved to articulate all reality?