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We model demand for noninstrumental information, drawing on the idea that people derive entertainment utility from suspense and surprise. A period has more suspense if the variance of the next period’...

The study shows that non-linear perceptions of probabilistic rewards explain non-normative information demand in instrumental and noninstrumental conditions, and correlate with personality traits and ...

Authenticity has changed from an inward gaze to a social display. Can we reconcile the performance with the real thing?

“It is no help in understanding either why “good” is indefinable, or how it is used, to explain that a good action is one which corresponds to the Form of the Good, or to the Moral Law. It is equally pointless to be told that true statements correspond to the way the world is. The appropriate position for the “antirealist” is just to admit that nothing will explicate “theory-independent truth,” just as nothing will explicate “noninstrumental goodness” or “nonfunctional beauty,” and to move the burden of proof back [to the realist by asking] “What would we lose if we had no ahistorical theory-independent notion of truth?”” - Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature The post “It is no help in understanding either why “good” is indefinable, or how it is used, to…” appeared first on Philosophy News.

(RNS) — During the Conservative Resurgence, I thought we were fighting for the Bible. Instead, we were also political pawns for an abuser.

Jeffrey Ely, Alexander Frankel, Emir Kamenica, Suspense and Surprise, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 123, No. 1 (February 2015), pp. 215-260

> Embracing inconvenience may sound odd, but we already do it without thinking of it as such. As if to mask the issue, we give other names to our inconvenient choices: We call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions. These are the noninstrumental activities that help to define us. They reward us with character because they involve an encounter with meaningful resistance — with nature’s laws, with the limits of our own bodies — as in carving wood, melding raw ingredients, fixing a broken appliance, writing code, timing waves or facing the point when the runner’s legs and lungs begin to rebel against him. Si todo lo medimos a partir de cuán conveniente es, dice Tim Wu en esta columna en el New York Times, no solo nos rendimos ante los parámetros que nos entrega la oligarquía tecnolibertaria que gobierna nuestros teléfonos sino que nos olvidamos de nuestra propia humanidad. Rendirse significa pensar que nuestra única forma de expresión es elegir cuál foto de vacaciones es la que mejor le viene al fondo de nuestro smartphone. Vale la pena leer el artículo completo (está en castellano también, aunque incomprensiblemetne traducen _convenience_ por la espantosa "practicidad"), porque explora la relación entre conveniencia y la falsa autonomía, y porque enfatiza la importancia de elegir caminos difíciles, de las opciones que no son obvias, de las decisiones que parecen absurdas. Pero que nos humanizan, no están hechas para conseguir ganancias, están hechas por que sí. Porque, en algún sentido, **son** absurdas. Como compartir artículos que nos gustan. Así de absurdo.

> Embracing inconvenience may sound odd, but we already do it without thinking of it as such. As if to mask the issue, we give other names to our inconvenient choices: We call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions. These are the noninstrumental activities that help to define us. They reward us with character because they involve an encounter with meaningful resistance — with nature’s laws, with the limits of our own bodies — as in carving wood, melding raw ingredients, fixing a broken appliance, writing code, timing waves or facing the point when the runner’s legs and lungs begin to rebel against him. Si todo lo medimos a partir de cuán conveniente es, dice Tim Wu en esta columna en el New York Times, no solo nos rendimos ante los parámetros que nos entrega la oligarquía tecnolibertaria que gobierna nuestros teléfonos sino que nos olvidamos de nuestra propia humanidad. Rendirse significa pensar que nuestra única forma de expresión es elegir cuál foto de vacaciones es la que mejor le viene al fondo de nuestro smartphone. Vale la pena leer el artículo completo (está en castellano también, aunque incomprensiblemetne traducen _convenience_ por la espantosa "practicidad"), porque explora la relación entre conveniencia y la falsa autonomía, y porque enfatiza la importancia de elegir caminos difíciles, de las opciones que no son obvias, de las decisiones que parecen absurdas. Pero que nos humanizan, no están hechas para conseguir ganancias, están hechas por que sí. Porque, en algún sentido, **son** absurdas. Como compartir artículos que nos gustan. Así de absurdo.