----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Report from the year 2054: Empirical Correlates of "Utility" It is the 50th anniversary of the HES bulletin board's discussion of "What is Something Worth?," in which the notion of "utility" was alternatively castigated (in a scholarly way, of course) and defended. Thus, it seems appropriate, if not timely, to revisit that discussion in light of the empirical breakthroughs in developing empirical correlates of "utility" in the decades since. The major breakthrough, came, of course, in 2032, when the noted econo-psychologist/ psycho-economist and experimentalist (and generally smart cookie) Dr. Samuelson Snickerdoodle employed widely available technologies to measure what is arguably an empirical correlate of "utility." These technologies, widely available since the mid-20th century, allowed the measurement of changes in the level of brain activity caused by various stimuli the individual experienced. To put this in a way consistent with utility notions, some heightened brain activities involved increased pleasurable sensations, others involved increased discomfort, and the experimenter could distinguish the two kinds of activities, and measure their frequency and intensity. Restating this in language more acceptable to current researchers in psychology, who today shy away from notions of "pleasure" and "pain," correlated brain activities could be distinguished and their frequency, intensity and topography measured. Dr. Snickerdoodle's contribution had at least two components. One was conceptual. He recognized that heightened pleasurable brain activities might represent a convenient empirical interpretation of "utility", or (in more understandable language not wrapped up in arcane philosophical baggage) "satisfaction." His second contribution was technological. He developed an inexpensive miniaturization of the electronic machinery that allowed one to actually measure these " utility-correlate" changes using a small machine the size of a hearing aid, so that data could be collected by simply "sticking it in your ear", so to speak.[1] This allowed experimentalists at campuses (to say nothing of drug rehab clinics) to use the device to collect data from massive numbers of "subjects." Because Dr. Snickerdoodle was not lacking in wit, he called the units he was measuring "Jollies", as opposed to the more arcane "Utils" and the insufficiently poetic "SATs", which also had the problem of reading suspiciously like a college entrance exam. As with most measurement breakthroughs, the device and the results it produced were not universally accepted, for a wide variety of reasons. These included: 1. The idea that, since man is, at least allegedly, a thinking being, there is more to "satisfaction" (or "utility")--if those concepts have any meaning--than "mere" changes in "pleasurable sensation" levels. 2. The Heisenberg Ear problem: By trying to measure how the individual feels while he has something in his ear, we may not be getting measures of how (s)he would in fact feel without something in his ear. 3. The Interpersonal Comparison Heisenberg Ear (or ICHE) problem: What if different individuals are differentially affected by having something in their ear? The long- standing problem of the probable illegitimacy of interpersonal "utility-correlate" comparisons once again raises its ugly head. 4. The idea that the market would create incentives to misreport results, such as overstating the Jollies produced, and understating the possibility of satiation from, drinking a whole bunch of Pepsi s. (To guard against such dangers, many universities established Internal Ear Review Boards to monitor compliance with sound ear research. Attempts to study the utility effects of trying to deal with such Internal Ear Review Boards have gotten no place, since the Boards typically refuse to approve such research). 5. A generalized fear that allowing psycho-economists to try to measure Jollies was a Dr. Strangelovian step into a kind of world we did not want to enter, one in which the government could monitor, and therefore manipulate, our perceptions of our own well-being. As one would expect, research proceeded even in the face of these potential difficulties.