timtyler comments on Time and Effort Discounting - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Yvain 07 July 2011 11:48PM

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Comment author: timtyler 08 July 2011 08:19:23AM 0 points [-]

I think it is much more plausible that people use ad hoc heuristics developed to deal with these issues, than that we actually use a hyperbolic discount function.

Those issues seem pretty common. Why would nature not use hyperbolic discounting - and then use ad hoc heuristics to patch it in cases where it doesn't apply?

Comment author: rwallace 08 July 2011 04:04:21PM 0 points [-]

Yeah, the paper Yvain linked, seems to be providing evidence that a hyperbolic discount function may be the first-order heuristic for handling such issues, with patches applied where appropriate.