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 Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
I know this. I also know the idea of utility is nonsense for one simple reason - if ever any rational agent made a choice that didn't maximize his utility, you'd never know. And there's no reason to believe that people must always maximize utility.
If this is nonsense, then all science is nonsense. Everything uses fundamental assumptions that are not testable.
Example: fundamental assumption of science: repeatability of phenomena. Nobody can prove this assumption. Every experiment anybody does, its relevance can to other experiments and to descriptions of nature can only be assumed. Nobody actually knows. Rational behavior theory is on par with this; economists assume what appears to be a fundamental "truth" so they can move forward just like chemists and physicists do in their respective sciences.
If we assume that people don't maximize their utility, then, well, I don't know what happens to economics. The field probably becomes nonsensical.
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