A (More) Realistic Approach to Quantifying Love

You may recall that I am of the strong opin­ion that love — real­ly, any sort of emo­tion along the spec­trum of human feel­ing — can­not be reli­ably quan­ti­fied. At the very least, I don’t think it can be numer­i­cal­ly quan­ti­fied in any per­sua­sive way à la the eco­nom­ic con­cept of car­di­nal util­i­ty. But the fact remains that we as humans do exhib­it pref­er­ences; which is to say, that we like or love some things more or less than others.

It is clear, then, that we can and do implic­it­ly mea­sure our feel­ings. That leaves me with a num­ber of ques­tions —  name­ly, how do we mea­sure our feel­ings? Are we con­scious that we are doing so? Does it mat­ter whether we are, and what are the impli­ca­tions either way?  Maybe there are answers to these inquiries, and maybe (indeed, like­li­er) not. What­ev­er the case, I think that they can be boiled down to a sim­pler ques­tion, and one that may be fun to explore: 

Is there a (more) real­is­tic approach to quan­ti­fy­ing love?

The Economics of Feeling

Acknowl­edg­ing that we as humans exhib­it pref­er­ences sug­gests that our feel­ings are indeed quan­tifi­able. For exam­ple, sup­pose that I pre­fer apples to oranges; that is, I enjoy con­sum­ing apples more than oranges. Phrased dif­fer­ent­ly, I think it would be fair to state that I like apples more than I like oranges. Thus, the issue that I have with the notion of quan­ti­fy­ing feel­ings is not that the idea that our feel­ings are inher­ent­ly inca­pable of being mea­sured; but rather the idea that we can assign them some arbi­trary numer­ic value.

There are numer­ous eco­nom­ic the­o­ries that I believe, when tak­en togeth­er, help lay a foun­da­tion for the artic­u­la­tion of a way in which we might very rough­ly quan­ti­fy the mag­ni­tude of a per­son­’s feel­ings. I explore them below, but please note that I pro­vide only a high­ly sim­pli­fied, basic expla­na­tion of each (which is, frankly, all I’m capa­ble of). My expla­na­tions also gen­er­al­ly assume that peo­ple will act accord­ing to their true feel­ings — that is, they won’t make deci­sions based on out­side influ­ences such as exter­nal pres­sure, i.e. from fam­i­ly, a part­ner, a dif­fi­cult finan­cial sit­u­a­tion, and so forth. As always, num­bers are not my forte, so please let me know of any mis­takes I’ve made!

Revisiting the Economic Theory of Utility

There are two pri­ma­ry approach­es with respect to the broad­er eco­nom­ic the­o­ry of util­i­ty, ordi­nal util­i­ty and car­di­nal util­i­ty. The con­cept of ordi­nal util­i­ty holds that the sat­is­fac­tion a con­sumer derives from con­sump­tion of a good or ser­vice can­not be scaled in num­bers, but can be arranged in the order of pref­er­ence. Con­verse­ly, the con­cept of car­di­nal util­i­ty posits that the sat­is­fac­tion a con­sumer derives from con­sump­tion of a good or ser­vice can be scaled in count­able numbers.

The graph below may help illus­trate these con­flict­ing approach­es to util­i­ty the­o­ry. Each of the three lines on the graph is an indif­fer­ence curve, which in turn rep­re­sents var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions of two goods (here, X and Y) that leave the con­sumer equal­ly sat­is­fied. For our very lim­it­ed pur­pos­es, I like to think of these indif­fer­ence curves as “states-of-being”: assume that the three curves below (labeled Curve \space 1, Curve \space 2, and Curve  \space 3 respec­tive­ly) each refer to a spe­cif­ic set of cir­cum­stances, or a par­tic­u­lar “state-of-being” or “sit­u­a­tion” (Sit­u­a­tion \space 1, Sit­u­a­tion \space 2, and Sit­u­a­tion \space 3, if you will).

Accord­ing to car­di­nal util­i­ty the­o­ry, we can assign a numer­ic val­ue to the sat­is­fac­tion a con­sumer enjoys in each sit­u­a­tion — here, U=10, U=20 and U=30 respec­tive­ly (these numer­ic val­ues refer to a cer­tain num­ber of utils).

Con­verse­ly, ordi­nal util­i­ty the­o­ry sug­gests that the sat­is­fac­tion a con­sumer derives from any par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion is mean­ing­ful only in the con­text of how it com­pares to the oth­ers. Note that the util­i­ty lev­els (U=10, U=20 and U=30) so inte­gral to the car­di­nal util­i­ty the­o­ry are void and mean­ing­less here; under ordi­nal util­i­ty the­o­ry, the only sub­stan­tive infor­ma­tion we can gath­er about any one sit­u­a­tion is how it mea­sures up rel­a­tive to anoth­er. For exam­ple, look­ing at the graph and dis­re­gard­ing the arbi­trary util­i­ty lev­els, all we can real­ly say about Sit­u­a­tion \space 2 is that it makes the con­sumer hap­pi­er than does Sit­u­a­tion \space 1, and less hap­py than does Sit­u­a­tion \space 3.

I find ordi­nal util­i­ty the­o­ry both more per­sua­sive and more rel­e­vant in deter­min­ing whether there is a real­is­tic way to quan­ti­fy our feel­ings. It sets the foun­da­tion for, and ties very well into, yet anoth­er eco­nom­ic the­o­ry that I think is even more salient with respect to explor­ing how we mea­sure our feel­ings: the eco­nom­ic the­o­ry of revealed preferences .

Revealed Preferences

The eco­nom­ic the­o­ry of revealed pref­er­ences is one of my per­son­al favorites, as I find it to be beau­ti­ful­ly intu­itive. First posit­ed by Paul Samuel­son, the the­o­ry of revealed pref­er­ences sim­ply holds that a con­sumer’s pur­chas­ing behav­ior is the best indi­ca­tor of their pref­er­ences — that is, that our behav­ior, actions, choic­es, and so forth, reveal our pref­er­ences. To that end, the the­o­ry of revealed pref­er­ences is very apt­ly named.

For exam­ple, sup­pose I am at a restau­rant, choos­ing between fries and onion rings as a side dish; after some intense delib­er­a­tion, I choose fries. Now, I can claim all I want that I love onion rings, but my choos­ing fries sug­gests oth­er­wise. In that regard, I some­times like to think that the the­o­ry of revealed pref­er­ences is well-cap­tured by the old adage that “actions speak loud­er than words.” (There is a slight nuance to the the­o­ry of revealed pref­er­ences, in that income and prices must be held con­stant across dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances. Return­ing to the exam­ple above, it may well be that I do love onion rings — but per­haps not enough to pay, say, a $50 pre­mi­um for them over fries, and cer­tain­ly not after being laid off from my job and suf­fer­ing a dras­tic reduc­tion to my income.)

To that end, I am of the mind that we can mea­sure — in a very rudi­men­ta­ry way — how much or how lit­tle a per­son loves one thing rel­a­tive to how much they love oth­er things, based on their behav­ior, choic­es, and decisions.

An Illustration: The Adventures of O, A, and B

A very basic hypo­thet­i­cal using three peo­ple, Per­son O, Per­son A, and Per­son B  (remem­ber them?), may help illus­trate how the the­o­ry of revealed pref­er­ences can speak to how we mea­sure our feel­ings. Sup­pose that Per­son O has the option to date either Per­son A or Per­son B, and ulti­mate­ly choos­es to date Per­son A. The the­o­ry of revealed pref­er­ences would inter­pret this deci­sion as indi­cat­ing that Per­son O prefers Per­son A to Per­son B; and for our pur­pos­es, we would in turn deduce that Per­son O loves or likes Per­son A more than she does Per­son B (if only real life were so simple!).

Recall that we are assum­ing that peo­ple act accord­ing to their true feel­ings — but of course, in real­i­ty peo­ple (and sit­u­a­tions) are com­pli­cat­ed, and rarely if ever are we per­fect­ly ratio­nal actors. Per­son O may have cho­sen to date Per­son A because he or she was the “safe” option, or was more pop­u­lar with O’s fam­i­ly — when in real­i­ty, Per­son O loves Per­son B more. Who knows?

But per­haps then, owing to this greater, sup­pressed love for Per­son B, Per­son O is nev­er ful­ly able to excise Per­son B from her life, and con­tin­ues to com­mu­ni­cate with Per­son B to the cha­grin and ire of Per­son A. In such a case, I would con­tend that through this dis­re­gard of Per­son A’s feel­ings, Per­son O has revealed her true feel­ings — that is, her pref­er­ence and appar­ent­ly greater love for Per­son B — despite hav­ing osten­si­bly cho­sen Per­son A.

Or maybe not — maybe Per­son O choos­es to date Per­son A, despite lov­ing Per­son B more, but treats Per­son A with noth­ing but per­fect respect, cour­tesy, and affec­tion; and no one is ever the wis­er about her true feel­ings. It is impos­si­ble to read into why peo­ple make the deci­sions that they do, or why they behave in the ways that they do; and so for the very lim­it­ed pur­pos­es of our analy­sis, we will con­tin­ue to assume that peo­ple act in accor­dance with how they tru­ly feel —  if I love Per­son A, I’ll date Per­son A, even if doing so is an unpop­u­lar move with­in my family.

Love in a Vacuum 

I do believe then, that to a very lim­it­ed extent, love can be quan­ti­fied. “Quan­ti­fied” may not be the best word — rather, we can draw con­clu­sions about how much or how lit­tle a per­son loves some­thing, rel­a­tive to oth­er things, based on their behav­ior, choic­es, and actions. What we can­not do is, in dis­crete numer­ic terms, quan­ti­fy how much a per­son loves some­thing in a vacuum.

This harkens back to the con­cept of ordi­nal util­i­ty, which sug­gests that we can mea­sure the hap­pi­ness that we derive from a cer­tain sit­u­a­tion, but only as it com­pares to the hap­pi­ness we derive from oth­er sit­u­a­tions. We can­not con­duct mean­ing­ful analy­sis about how much or how lit­tle we love some­thing with­out any con­text or met­ric for com­par­i­son. In a vac­u­um, there is no per­sua­sive way to accu­rate­ly describe the mag­ni­tude of our feelings.

In my opin­ion, the act of “quan­ti­fy­ing” love is a lot like that of try­ing to see the wind. We can’t see the wind in it of itself, just as we can’t numer­i­cal­ly mea­sure love in it of itself. But we can see the very tan­gi­ble effects of the wind, and so mea­sure its strength, per­haps by the objects it blows over. In a sim­i­lar way, we may not be able to quan­ti­fy the mag­ni­tude of human feel­ing, but we can derive some idea of its inten­si­ty based on its tan­gi­ble effects — how it com­pels us to act, and what it com­pels us to do, in the face of viable alternatives.

 

The con­tent of this post con­sti­tutes an expres­sion pure­ly of my per­son­al opin­ion and con­jec­ture, and accord­ing­ly, is intend­ed only to enter­tain rather than to inform or instruct. If you see any errors, please *****@*******ol.me”>let me know.