The unpredictable Buridan's ass: Failure to predict decisions in a trivial decision-making task

In order to better examine seemingly unpredictable variation that appears in decision-making studies, I had people chose between two options that had no features or consequences to distinguish them. 100 users of Mechanical Turk completed 200 binary choices, and I examined the accuracy with which statistical models could predict the choices. Across three different conceptualizations of the prediction problem and a variety of models ranging from logistic regression to neural networks, I obtained at best modest predictive accuracy. Predicting trivial choices may actually be more difficult than predicting meaningful choices. These strongly negative results appear to place limits on the predictability of human behavior.

The Arbitrariness Argument

This chapter presents a non‐arbitrariness argument against near bias: (1) At any given time, a prudentially rational agent’s preferences are insensitive to arbitrary differences. (2) Relative distance from the present is an arbitrary difference between events. (3) If you are near‐biased, your preferences are sensitive to when an event is scheduled relative to the present. (C) So at any given time, near‐biased preferences are not rational. This chapter focuses on objections to (1) (the Non‐Arbitrariness principle), offering cases to support the Non‐Arbitrariness principle. It considers and rejects Preference Uniqueness (i.e., any total set of reasons uniquely determines a set of rational preferences) as a way of defending (1) in favor of moderate preference permissivism. It argues that the Non‐Arbitrariness principle does not rule out rational choice in Buridan’s ass cases. While it is irrational to prefer one option to the other, it is not irrational to act by making choices.

Cuticular hydrocarbon divergence in Drosophila melanogaster populations evolving under differential operational sex ratios

The ability of interlocus sexual conflict to facilitate reproductive isolation is widely anticipated. However, very few experimental evolutionary studies have convincingly demonstrated the evolution of reproductive isolation due to sexual conflict. Recently a study on replicate populations of Drosophila melanogaster under differential sexual conflict found that divergent mate preference evolved among replicate populations under high sexual conflict regime. The precopulatory isolating mechanism underlying such divergent mate preference could be sexual signals such as cuticular hydrocarbons since they evolve rapidly and are involved in D. melanogaster mate recognition. Using D. melanogaster replicates used in the previous study, we investigate whether cuticular hydrocarbon divergence bears signatures of sexually antagonistic coevolution that led to reproductive isolation among replicates of high sexual conflict regime. We found that D. melanogaster cuticular hydrocarbon profiles are sexually dimorphic. Although replicate populations under high sexual conflict displayed assortative mating, we found no significant differences in the cuticular hydrocarbon profile between the high and low sexual conflict regimes. Instead we find cuticular hydrocarbon divergence patterns to be suggestive of the Buridan’s Ass regime which is one of the six possible mechanisms to resolve sexual conflict. Sexual selection that co-vary between populations under high and low sexual conflict regimes may also have contributed to the evolution of cuticular hydrocarbons. This study indicates that population differentiation as a result of cuticular hydrocarbon divergence cannot be credited to sexual conflict despite high sexual conflict regime evolving divergent cuticular hydrocarbon profiles.

The Beliefs and Intentions of Buridan's Ass

ABSTRACT:The moral of Buridan's ass is that it can sometimes be rational to perform one action rather than another even though one lacks stronger reason to do so. Yet, it is also commonly believed that it cannot ever be rational to believe one proposition rather than another if one lacks stronger reason to do so. This asymmetry has been taken to indicate a deep difference between epistemic and practical rationality. According to the view articulated here, the asymmetry should instead be explained by the difference between rational intentions and rational actions. Thus, it turns out, cases such as Buridan's ass do not indicate an asymmetry between epistemic and practical rationality as such.