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Showing posts with the label astronomy

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

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  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra
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Archeo-Astronomy- A Note

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  To many history might appear boring, yet it is equally fascinating to a number of others. History is about the past. Yet history teaches us about the present and the future. History is about learning the right lessons. History often repeats itself as a farce often as a tragedy. Avoiding this tragedy is something that becomes critical. It is about regressing the past towards forecasting the future. In quantitative methods, regression is a standard tool to understand the future through the past correlations. History too is about building correlations of the past to project the future. History of course differs from statistical tools in terms of its qualitative and often subjective analysis. History is about decoding the conditions that existed resulting in a war for instance. If a war were to be a dependent variable, then the question would be about those independent variables as also the interaction variables while controlling for certain variables that determined the trajectory of th
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Economics and Eclipses!

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Eclipses evoke fear, mystery and awe alike. For ancients, it was certainly a mystery. They would have been ignorant of a natural phenomenon that does not experience a frequent occurrence. During total solar eclipse when sun disappears and darkness abounds in the midst of the day, they would have certainly been fear struck and panic ensued for those few moments before the sun began to take ‘rebirth’. Given zero knowledge of science, it would have been most likely to be attributed to super natural forces. Within perhaps centuries, mankind probably make sense of eclipses as phenomenon that occur though the natural linkages might not have been established. To some ancient civilizations, there were astronomers who could predict eclipses in advance. Evidences of eclipses are found in ancient Hindu scriptures and mythology like Mahabharata etc . Given the supernatural attribution to eclipses, it gave rise to several theories and practices. Astrological significance would have added
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