Why do we need to specialize? Our time is limited, we cannot do everything and need focussed efforts into a few things. How do we decide what we want to focus on?
I was recently going through virtual economies paper and the auctions setting particularly interested me. Agents are given equal virtual currency and they need to bid on tasks based on whatever they want the most. Suppose I as an agent A want X, Y, Z the most compared to others (X2, Y2, Z2..) and I will divide my bids based on proportion of my desirability of X, Y, Z placing the bids on highest desired outcomes. Another agent wants something else and will place bid according to his preferences. Since the currency is limited, an agent cannot get/do everything and has to choose. Whatever he chooses and does kind of changes his skills and outlook in life and its a cyclic process - decide bids based on desirability -> get your allocations -> changes in desirability based on outcomes/goal satisfaction/alignment with values -> place next bids...
Is this true for us? We have limited (probably not equal) currency in terms of our time and energy. If I want to focus on sports, I will give more preference to sports and dedicate more time to it. We divide our currency (time) according to our preferences among several outcomes. We probably cannot do everything all at once and need to bid (allocate time) based on the things we want the most (maybe due to more rewards in terms of finances, learning, our inherent values, passion, etc).
This probably explains why humans specialise in (few) occupations (doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists, sports-persons, actors etc) and put focussed efforts on one or few fields. One can be a master of few or many since some learnings can transfer but cannot possibly be a master of all trades.
Why do we need to specialize? Our time is limited, we cannot do everything and need focussed efforts into a few things. How do we decide what we want to focus on?
I was recently going through virtual economies paper and the auctions setting particularly interested me. Agents are given equal virtual currency and they need to bid on tasks based on whatever they want the most. Suppose I as an agent A want X, Y, Z the most compared to others (X2, Y2, Z2..) and I will divide my bids based on proportion of my desirability of X, Y, Z placing the bids on highest desired outcomes.
Another agent wants something else and will place bid according to his preferences. Since the currency is limited, an agent cannot get/do everything and has to choose. Whatever he chooses and does kind of changes his skills and outlook in life and its a cyclic process - decide bids based on desirability -> get your allocations -> changes in desirability based on outcomes/goal satisfaction/alignment with values -> place next bids...
Is this true for us? We have limited (probably not equal) currency in terms of our time and energy. If I want to focus on sports, I will give more preference to sports and dedicate more time to it. We divide our currency (time) according to our preferences among several outcomes. We probably cannot do everything all at once and need to bid (allocate time) based on the things we want the most (maybe due to more rewards in terms of finances, learning, our inherent values, passion, etc).
This probably explains why humans specialise in (few) occupations (doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists, sports-persons, actors etc) and put focussed efforts on one or few fields. One can be a master of few or many since some learnings can transfer but cannot possibly be a master of all trades.