Subjective Feeling

Abstract

In the 19th century, Jevons wished for a way to measure the quantity of feeling, which he envisioned as the integral of the intensity of feeling from an activity on which a subject was spending time. I have derived the measure of intensity of feeling from both the engaged activity and non-engaged activities with a theory founded on subjective feeling as the primitive of human behavior. The integral of my measure of intensity of feeling from the engaged activity measures the quantity of feeling, which I call integrated experience in my research. I have developed my theory of choice with weaker assumptions than those in neoclassical economic theory because subjective feeling is a more basic primitive than the preference relation. The application of my subjective feeling theory is in two parts. In the first part, I explain with a descriptive framework any optimal or non-optimal choice of time-allocations to activities without the observer's assumption of optimization for the subject. In the second part, I predict with a normative framework the optimal choice of time-allocations to activities, as well as the sequence of engaged activities, with the observer's assumption of optimization for the subject who maximizes his overall experience. In the descriptive framework, the subject chooses a sequence of engaged activities in a schedule based on the switch-time determination through a matching process between the engaged activity and non-engaged activities. In the normative framework, the conditionally rational subject chooses the sequence of engaged activities in the optimal schedule through a sorting process of all matchings. The choices that the observer is able to analyze with my intensity of feeling functions extend those that she is able to analyze with utility functions.