Why known unknowns may be better than knowns, and how that matters for the evolution of happiness

Johan Stennek ()
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Johan Stennek: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden, http://economics.gu.se

No 829, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: As humans have a limited range of feelings and limited perception, we can’t rank all possible actions in order of preference. However, we can use this inability to rank some actions, to infer rankings of other actions. Surprisingly, having less precise sensory information improves our ability to draw such inferences. Therefore, if nature selected a “Reasoning Man” with perfect inferential abilities, this person would have muted feelings and blurred perception. Behavior would nevertheless maximize happiness and evolutionary fitness, and not be merely satisficing. These results might help explain why the human sensory system has its well-documented limitations.

Keywords: Indirect evolutionary approach; utility function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B52 D91 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10 pages
Date: 2022-10, Revised 2024-09-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-hap, nep-hme, nep-mic and nep-upt
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