Economics as mechanism: The mind as machine in Hayek's sensory order

InThe Sensory Order, Friedrich A. Hayek describes the human mind as an “apparatus of classification” that evolves through experience and that reaches decisions by “modeling” the alternative courses of action that are available to it. Hayek's mechanistic conception of mind argues aginst the possibility of central planning and against the cogency of any rule that denigrates “subjective” decision making by employers or other economic agents. As implied by Gödel's proof, no brain, human or mechanical, can ever be sufficiently complex to explain itself. There will therefore always be certain knowledge and rules that cannot be articulated to the satisfaction of a central planner or tribunal. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1995