Economics is the Science of Choice
Economics is the science of choice: how choices get resolved, their significance to those choosing, and their implications and consequences.
Identity is defined by the ability to choose. We have identity both as individuals and groups. Both individuals and groups make choices, and the process is comparable, if not equivalent, regardless of the entity choosing. Whether you are debating where to eat fast food, or the country is deciding who will be president, both use narratives in information systems to resolve choice outcomes.
Social choice is resolved through competing narratives. A “narrative” is merely interpretation and experience adapted for presentation in a social context. Cognitive consciousness, a process we ascribe to human organisms and other living organisms, is notable as an information process because it is “experiential”(I have written about this here).
Experience is created by recording, narrating, and interpreting memories, not merely by performing actions.
Narratives are way of filtering experiential information for use in a particular context, namely, social contexts.
Interpretation is a process of transferring and/or transforming information from one medium to another. Information is an abstraction of physical configuration requiring a mathematical description of a space of possible physical configurations. Information can be analyzed independent of the medium that encodes that information. Interpretation is defined as a physical process whose outcome is completely determined by a system’s informational state(the current configuration of a system within the mathematical configuration space used to define the information abstraction).
Sometimes interpretation is lossless, ie, it involves a mathematically perfect reproduction of information from one medium to another. But many times, interpretation cannot be performed losslessly, either because of the constraints of the mediums, the constraints of channels, or the nature of the physical process of interpretation itself.
Programs are structures which impose choice outcomes. Narratives can be considered both informational products used by programs and programs themselves.
So when I say identity is defined by the ability to choose, what I’m saying is that identity is programs, and programs are our identity.
This idea might resonate more with people if I say that identity comes from the stories we tell —that’s how this works in a social setting.
Next time some complains about the price of tortillas, and mutters “ya know, supply and demand”, you can respond by talking about how interpretation creates knowledge representations describing the physical world and biological and social programs are our identity — leading to the choice of buying that tortilla or not. So quit complaining about prices, just decide if you want it or not, given the knowledge you now have!
