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Defining Asymmetry: Its Origin and Its Significance in the Broad Social Context and Contemporary

Market Economy --- By Zhengyang Wen

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Table of Contents

0. Prologue ………………………………………………………………………….………31. Preliminaries: the Theory of Human Behavior………………………………….……..4

1A.The Formation of Human Behavior…………………………...……………………4

1B.The Optimization Strategy of Human Behavior....……….………………………..6

1C.Human Behavior within the Socioeconomics Context……………………………..8

2. The Notion of Asymmetry: Its Origin and Its Interpretation………………………..11

2A.The Derivation of the Concept of Asymmetry.........................................................11

2B.The Interpretation of Asymmetry: Its Significance and Its Implication for Human Behavior………………………………………………………………………..14

2C.The Origin of Asymmetry: a Theory of Structural Qualification…………………………………………….…………………………...….15

2D.Concept Illustration, a Historical Example: the Society of Hunters and Collectors………………………………………………………………………………..17

2E.The Specification of the Quantitative Model of Human Behavior and the Determination of the Competitive Nash Equilibrium as the Source of Asymmetry….…………………………………………………………………………..25

2F.Model Interpretation, a Qualitative Reflection…………………………………...37

3. The Manifestation of Asymmetry in the Contemporary Market Economy: Its Form and Significance in the Contemporary Market Structure…………………………...41

3A.The Form of Asymmetry in the Market Economy………………………………..41

3B.The Significance of Asymmetry in the Market Economy: the Salient Anchor and the Observable Indicator of Industrial Vicissitude…………………………………..47

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0. Prologue: This original article is dedicated to give a thorough discussion of the most essential concept presented in the research of my Econ Honors Program: the notion of Asymmetry. Different from any usual or traditional way of interpretation for this term, this article is going to give a precise exposition and rigorous development of the meaning of Asymmetry under the context of social and economic concerns, and adopt it as the basis of deduction for the later part of the research exploration. It has been composed in a progressive sequence of exhibitions of ideas and concepts, and each part of this dissertation has been logically built upon the foundations laid in the former sections.

The building of the notion of Asymmetry starts with a comprehensive illustration on my original theory of human behavior. This theory serves as the root and buttress for the entire derivation of the idea of Asymmetry, and it is one of the most significant theoretical analysis that I’ve developed in my undergraduate study of economics. It has highly generalizable theoretical value, and most importantly, it provides me with a behavioral perspective to understand economic and social issues.

After this, the texts would dig into the accurate derivation of the definition of the notion of Asymmetry by focusing on its origin and its manifestation, and explore the social significance and applicability value of this notion in the environment of market economy.

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1. Preliminaries: The Theory of Human Behavior

A. The Formation of Human Behavior:

Human behavior is the process of transforming the exogenously determined initial physical reality into a subjectively desired form by realizing and executing the endogenously manipulative actionable movements and changes.

Assumption 1.1: The desirability of any given form of exogenous reality for a given person is biologically and culturally dictated, thus remains to be insensitive and constant to endogenously manipulative actionable movements and changes (i.e. the desirability of any given form of physical reality for a given person is intrinsic under a specified biological and cultural context).

Human behavior is fundamentally based on two distinctive aspects, the controllable factors and the uncontrollable factors.

Controllable factors: Factors that are influenced and modifiable by the person’s volitional determination, and are shaped endogenously. The controllable factors characterize the entire space of choices and options of actionable movements.

Uncontrollable factors: Factors that are external to the subjective thinking and conducts of the person, and are shaped exogenously. The uncontrollable factors delineate the framework through which human behaviors are translated into exogenously influential stimuli that is embedded with the power to alter the initial physical reality.

Humans are free to choose their actionable movements endogenously within the limit of controllable factors; their choice of actionable movements would not change the intrinsic desirability of any given form of physical reality with respect to a specific biological and cultural context; for each endogenous choice it would produce a particular alternation on the initial physical reality, and this particular

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change is determined exogenously by the framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors.

With the knowledge and understanding of this behavioral system, the actionable movements within the range of controllable variables could be generally categorized into two separate groups with respect to the different types of alternations on the initial physical reality that they would produce exogenously under the given framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors.

Contributive Conducts: actionable movements within the limit of controllable factors that would produce an alternation on the initial physical reality with increased desirability exogenously under the given framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors.

Futile Conducts: actionable movements within the limit of controllable factors that would produce an alternation on the form of exogenous reality with equal or decreased desirability exogenously under the given framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors.

This dichotomy gives rise to the following postulate.

Postulate 1.2: Human behavior is the process of selection of the maximum amount of contributive conducts and the minimum amount of futile conducts within the limit of controllable factors under the given framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors.

The formation of human behavior has been practically reduced to a sequential process.

Postulate 1.3: Human behavior is primarily formed through three steps 1.The identification of the controllable factors and the uncontrollable factors in the given physical reality. 2. The separation of the actionable movements within the set of

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controllable factors into contributive conducts and futile conducts under the translation framework structured by the uncontrollable factors 3. The choice of exhaustive accumulation of contributive conducts and disposition of futile conducts. This derivation reveals a model which captures the essentials of human behavior with any prescribed combination of parameters.

Theorem 1.4: Given the following four parameters: 1.the initial exogenous physical reality that the human is facing 2.the biological and cultural background of the human 3.the set of controllable factors of the human 4.the set of uncontrollable factors of the human, the subsequent behaviors of the human and the eventual form of the changed reality after these behaviors could be completely determined according to the three-step rule given in Postulate 1.3

B. The Optimization Strategy of Human Behavior:

As a natural reasoning, in an effort to transform the given initial exogenous physical reality into a form with the optimal potential desirability, humans have to analyze the various effects of changes in these four parameters and endeavor to capitalize on these discoveries for the most prudent strategy of shaping their own behavior.

Among these four deterministic parameters, humans only have the freedom to influence the controllable factors as all the others are either taken as given or exogenous.

Postulate 1.5: Conditional on a given combination of the other three factors, the effectiveness of human behavior is directly determined by the composition of the controllable factors: the larger the content of contributive conducts and the smaller the content of futile conducts within the set of controllable factors, the higher the potential desirability that the human behavior is likely to produce, vice versa.

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Consequently, the dominant strategy of shaping human behavior given a combination of the other three factors for any person is to maximize the content of contributive conducts and minimize the content of futile conducts within the set of controllable factors.

Assumption 1.6: The size of the set of controllable factors is dictated by the total resources (time, space, stamina, assets, human & social capital etc.) possessed by the person under discussion. This size remains insensitive and constant to changes in both the endogenous choices of actionable movements and the exogenously determined uncontrollable variables. This size is only influenced by the person’s own status during the formation of his behavior and is determined previous to this process.

Cardinality: The size of a person’s set of controllable factors during the formation of a particular behavior.

For a given combination of all the other three parameters and a person’s own pre-determined cardinality, the aggregation of contributive conducts and futile conducts is fixed.

Postulate 1.7: The conversion between futile conducts and contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors under the framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors is endogenous.

Build from the several previous arguments, the formation of an optimizing strategy is completed.

Theorem 1.8: Conditional on any given combinations of the other three parameters and the person’s pre-determined cardinality, the optimization strategy of human behavior is the strategy that operates to convert futile conducts into contributive conducts at the largest scale within the set of controllable factors. This strategy would result in a set of controllable factors with the highest content of contributive conducts and lowest content of futile conducts, and subsequently determines a human behavior that would transform

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the given initial exogenous physical reality into a form with the highest level of desirability.

C. Human Behavior within the Socioeconomic Context:

A synthesis of a group of item is the summation of these individual objects together with the interactions and synergies between them.

Society is the synthesis of a group of people, their aggregate behaviors and their natural resources and artificial properties.

This definition would have particular significance for a society based on the institution of market economy.

Historically speaking, the essence of human behavior has gone through several stages of constant variations in consistency with the progress of society. During the prehistorical era and the early ages of agricultural society, the major concern of human behavior is focused on the choices of allocation of their strength and stamina into different types of labors of human production (cultivation, construction, gathering, fabrication of daily utensils etc.). Humans depend mostly on self-fulfilling economy by producing their own life necessities. In this stage, the primary way that human beings transform any given exogenous physical reality is by devoting their personal labors directly to reshape their natural surroundings.

However, things begin to change when the society has entered the stage of industrialization and scientific theorization, and the traditional agriculturally-emphasized society embraces a brand-new institution of value-exchange---the system of market economy.

In a modern society with the profound incorporation and assimilation of the institution of market economy, human beings transform their physical reality primarily through their engagement into economic activities.

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Economic activities: the activities that occur in a social framework of market economy in which people produce goods and services, participate in exchanges and transactions, and acquire the economic wealth (the right of access to the goods and services of other people) as a result.

Economic Success: The effectiveness of a person’s engagement into economic activities.

These notions give a natural rise to the following simplifying assumption in light of the most basic human biological needs for a stable source of material support (food, utilities, the financial cost of social interactions etc.) and amenity (health and medical service, tourism demands, entertainment etc.) as well as the prevalent cultural worships of economic success.

Assumption 1.9: The desirability of an exogenous physical reality for a given person under the socioeconomic context is directly characterized by his level of personal economic success under this reality. The higher the level of economic success, the higher the desirability of the reality, vice versa.

The influence of a society on the human behavior of its members is not only concerned with the stipulation of the measurement of desirability. The social implication of human behavior is more heavily focused on the specification of the sets of uncontrollable factors of its members.

Postulate 1.10: Society is the largest macro environment concerning human behavior and it is the primary institution responsible for the determination of uncontrollable factors for its members.

Society determines the various methods and rules through which its members’ volitional efforts could be translated into socially productive goods and services and then be exchanged for material

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wealth (the right of access to goods and services produced by other people in the society).

More specifically, the society lays the foundational framework and macro-environment of economic activities, and then determines the rules and methods for its members to translate their endogenous efforts into economic success.

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2. The Notion of Asymmetry: Its Origin and Its Interpretation

A. The Derivation of the Concept of Asymmetry:

As elaborated in the previous section, human behavior is confined within the limit of controllable factors, and the endogenous choice of actionable movements depends on the various alternation on the initial exogenous physical reality that the different actionable movements would produce under the framework of translation structured by uncontrollable factors. Given a combination of the initial exogenous physical reality, the set of uncontrollable factors, and the biological and cultural background of the human, the higher the content of contributive conducts and the lower the content of futile conducts within the set of controllable factors, the higher the desirability of the changed exogenous physical reality that the human behavior is able to generate. Thus, take the size of the set of controllable factors as pre-determined, the optimization strategy of human behavior is the strategy that operates to convert futile conducts into contributive conducts at the largest scale.

Due to the endogenous nature of the controllable factors and its fixed cardinality, an optimizing person would endeavor to realize the maximum conversion of futile conducts into contributive conducts to achieve a behavior that yields the alternation on the initial exogenous physical reality with the highest level of desirability.

A natural question to ask at this point is that: To what extent can a person convert the futile conducts into contributive conducts? Or what is the limit and boundary of this conversion?

Based their endogenous decisions on the exogenous translating effect of the framework of uncontrollable variables, people are able to unambiguously categorize the type of each actionable movements within the set of controllable factors. But what determines the relationship between these actionable movements? And what prescribes the convertibility between them?

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Postulate 2.1: Any intrinsic, stable, resilient and binding relationship between individual objects is determined by exogenous factors and is isolated from the endogenous properties of each of these objects.

With the principle given in this postulate, the relationship between each of these actionable movements must also be characterized by some exogenous factors on which neither of these actionable movements hold deterministic influence. Under the consideration and development of this model, this fact provides a convenient answer. Precisely speaking, the uncontrollable factors.

Theorem 2.2: The relationship between any two actionable movements within the set of controllable factors is determined by the set of uncontrollable factors.

The issue of convertibility between futile conducts and contributive conducts is consequently a problem pivots around their exogenously translated stimuli to the physical world under the framework of uncontrollable factors.

Without the loss of generality, the translated stimuli either increases the desirability of the initial exogenous physical reality, decreases it, or cause no substantial changes to it. Thus, we could describe the exogenous property of any actionable movement within the set of controllable factors conferred by the framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors in terms of their influence over the initial exogenous physical reality.

An actionable movement within the set of controllable factors is said to have a positive momentum if the exogenously translated stimulus to the physical reality under the framework of uncontrollable factors increases the desirability of the initial exogenous physical reality.

An actionable movement within the set of controllable factors is said to have a negative momentum if the exogenously translated stimulus to the physical reality under the framework of uncontrollable factors

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deceases the desirability of the initial exogenous physical reality or causes no substantial changes to it.

Contributive conducts have positive momentum, and futile conducts have negative momentum.

As two actionable movements are either both of same type of momentum (two contributive conducts or two futile conducts) or of different types (a contributive conduct and a futile conduct), their relationship could be summarized as follow.

A pair of actionable movements are called reversals if they have different types of momentum.

A pair of actionable movements are called cognates if they have the same type of momentum.

For any given pair of actionable movements, they are either reversals or cognates. This relationship is already exogenously determined by the framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors.

In accordance with theorem 2.2, for a given pair of reversals, there must be another dimension of properties given exogenously by the set of uncontrollable factors that dictates the convertibility between these two actionable movements.

Central Concept 1: It is said that there exists Symmetry between a pair of reversals if they are not convertible to each other. The existence of Symmetry is exogenously determined.

Central Concept 2: It is said that there exists Asymmetry between a pair of reversals if they are convertible to each other. The existence of Asymmetry is exogenously determined.

One might feel peculiar about the fact that Symmetry and Asymmetry between pairs of reversals are exogenously determined, as after all, actionable movements are endogenous. But recall that even each of

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these individual actionable movement is endogenous in nature, the relationships between them are not, as resilient and persistent relationships between different objects must depend on exogenous factors.

B. The Interpretation of Asymmetry: Its Significance and Its Implication for Human Behavior:

Asymmetry characterizes the existence of convertibility between a pair of reversals. It permits the person who constructs his behavior to optimize this duo by converting the actionable movement with negative momentum into the actionable movement with positive momentum. The net result is an increase in the eventual desirability that his behavior is going to produce.

However, the determination of both the types of momentum possessed by and the existence of Asymmetry between any two actionable movements is given exogenously. Yet, given this confinement of exogeneity, the endogenous choice of human behaviors is endowed with the freedom of optimization by capitalizing on the inherent Asymmetry between reversals in fulfilment of their subjective wants and desires.

Theorem 2.3: Asymmetry is the most essential property inherent in any exogenously determined situation that human behaviors capitalize on in order to endogenously optimize the exogenously yielded outcomes.

Asymmetry is the underlying bridge that enables human behavior to transcend the indefatigable boundary between exogeneity and endogeneity, and conveys people’s subjective psyches the power to ‘communicate’ with the objective physical world, and even the potency to reshape it in any preferred manner.

The identification of Asymmetry between pairs of reversals gives people the key to harness the intractable physical realities through the exploitation of their exogenously inherent

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relationships of mutual convertibility. It is the most cardinal channel for human behaviors to externalize the internal human desires .

C. The Origin of Asymmetry: a Theory of Structural Qualification

A natural question to propose at this point is that: where exactly does the Asymmetry between pairs of reversals come from? If people are able to excavate the origins of the Asymmetry, it would be much more convenient and handy to identify the underlying Asymmetry to exploit in their behavior construction.

Up until now, the only influence that the uncontrollable factors cast on the actionable movements is the translational effect. In order to pin down the existence of Asymmetry or Symmetry between pairs of reversals, this translation process must possess another set of underlying characteristics that serves as the origin of Asymmetry.

The Asymmetry is generated when a pair actionable movements are translated into a pair of exogenous stimuli with opposite momentum while they are convertible to each other. The determinants of Asymmetry must be shaped as an intrinsic by-product of this translation process itself. More specifically, the determination of Asymmetry is accomplished at the threshold (the contact point of uncontrollable factors and actionable movements, i.e. the point where the actionable enters the environment of uncontrollable factors) of the initiation of the translation process by the set of uncontrollable factors.

To be more precise, the origins of Asymmetry is neither directly determined by actionable movements nor the uncontrollable factors

Postulate 2.4: The determinants and origins of Asymmetry are conveyed at the moment of mutual presence of actionable movements and uncontrollable factors.

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To summarize this configuration of the dual presence of actionable movements and uncontrollable factors, we could incorporate these two set of items into a single interactive entity called a complex.

A complex is an independent entity comprised of the actionable movements and uncontrollable factors and their interactions with each other.

Within the complex, actionable movements are reflected into exogenous stimuli through the framework of translation structured by uncontrollable factors, but not yet enter the physical reality. That is to say, these interactions between actionable movements and uncontrollable factors are internal.

What is the implication of the specification of a complex on the origins and sources of Asymmetry? Inferring from its previous definition and borrowing from the statement of Postulate 2.4, we could acquire the following result.

Postulate 2.5: The origins of Asymmetry is determined as a structural product of the complex. It mediates the translated exogenous stimuli into the physical reality.

The origins of Asymmetry, consequently, must be characterized as an abstraction of the complex’s structure.

The complex synthesizes the actionable movements, which are connected to people’s volitions and subjective decisions, with the uncontrollable factors, which describe all the objective physical facts that are external to the human changes. Thus, the structural property of this duo is rendered with essentially a competitive balance. The two competing forces are the human behaviors and the physical environment in which all the deterministic factors are finely contained: the physical environment influence the final outcome of the reality in the way it has previously determined exogenously without any specific concern for any subjective wills and desires of human beings; the human behavior observes this fact and embraces

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the exogeneity of the world, while it exploits on the potential opportunity of transformation between contributive conducts and futile conducts in order to optimize the desirability of the outcome.

The equilibrium of this competing process happens when all the possible conversions between reversals are realized, which implies no further marginal conversion is permitted. At this equilibrium, both the exogenously determined physical realities (holds to be constant in any give situation) and the human behaviors have no incentive to deviate unilaterally, which means that this equilibrium characterizes a Nash Equilibrium.

The origins of Asymmetry, thus is fundamentally a competitive result. The competition between the two forces determines the level of underlying Asymmetry that is embedded in each complex.

This interpretation gives rise to the single most important qualitative theorem of this article.

Theorem 2.6: The origins and sources of Asymmetry is the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and the physical reality in any given complex.

Now we are ready to suspend our theoretical deduction for a moment and look at an examples in which the competitive Nash Equilibrium between humans and their physical realities provide abundant source of Asymmetry for exploitation.

D. Concept Illustration, a Historical Example: the Society of Hunters and Collectors

Postulate 2.7: Humans are differentiated from animals and plants because they are able to systematically and scientifically harness the power of Asymmetry, while all the other living beings are only confined to their own biologically dependent characteristics for the access of Asymmetry.

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The very first stage of human society is characterized by small communities comprised of a relatively small amount of fixed members. These communities are often tied together through their members’ genetically based kinship, and are assumed to be limited in terms of their population sizes due to the low level of social productivity.

At this stage, humans rely their sources of food supply upon their hunting and collecting activities. They are heavily influenced by the condition of their habitats: the exuberance and barrenness of the environment often directly determines the prosperity and poorness of the population, and some extremely fertile areas even give birth to the first several most thriving human civilizations.

At this initial stage, the living style of humans are not very separated from animals. The immediate physical realities in which they base their behaviors are the natural surroundings, and their actionable movements are primarily manual labors for food acquirement.

The physical realities evolve in a rhythmic way, changing from day to night, spring to winter. Humans choose their own labors to acquire the most abundant and stable source of food. As at this stage, nature is the only food producer, humans take into account of this exogenously determined fact, and analyze the pros and cons of their behaviors in terms of the effectiveness of exploitation on the nature’s food supply.

So, how does human systematically and scientifically exploit the underling Asymmetry within their environment? And what is the fundamental difference between human and animal at this stage? As seen from the discussion right before, humans live in a basically similar way as the animals, and they wield their biologically determined muscles and speed for food acquirement. It seems like humans are plausibly just one particular type of animals without anything remarkable enough to presage their absolute dominance in the future.

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However, the truth hidden in any mystery is not always what it ‘seems’ to be. Humans differ from animals at this stage essentially in two ways. First, humans not only depend their hunting and gathering activities on their muscles and speed, but also on their ingenious invention of tools. Second, humans have a comprehensive understanding of the nature’s rhythm, and migrate occasionally from place to place.

Tools refer to any human creation that are previously non-existent in nature used to enhance the social productivity.

At this stage, the tools are physical utensils made from bones, stones, plants etc. that are used to facilitate their gathering and hunting activities.

But, how exactly do human beings make these artifacts which they have never observed in their immediate realities? Or where do these designs come from?

The answer to this question is rather unobvious, and it simultaneously explains the root of the difference between humans and animals. We proceed with a sequence of logical deductions to reach this answer.

Humans have a much stronger self-consciousness than the animals. That is, humans are able to isolate their own existence from the nature in which they live. Humans perceive themselves as not a homogenous integral part of the nature but an independent species who absorbs natural resources to support their living . The formation of this self-consciousness is the beginning that human beings learn to systematically and scientifically exploit Asymmetry.

The formation of this significant self-conscious, in turn, is the result of the intellectual development of human brain, more specifically, the development of the capacious memory.

Humans are able to memorize the exogenous stimulations from external world in the form of vision, sound, touch and smell, and use

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these stimulations in associative mental activities to form abstract concept---the process that humans internalize the image of the external world.

With the memorized images of the sequences of alternations in their physical surroundings, humans soon discover the fact that: the nature is cyclical in essence: the sun rises and falls every day, the leaves grow yellow and green, the rivers freeze and thaw… Humans then understand that: their own subjective existence must be separated from the tacit rhythm of the nature as they themselves remain to be relatively unchanged in these cyclical natural process .

Their identification of independence from this cyclical nature is precisely what gives rise to the stipulation of the most far-reaching and most profound concept: time.

Postulate 2.8: Time is the human perceptual span over which the physical world undergoes cyclical movements.

Time is limitless, and this absence of limitation is rendered by the human’s perception of the cyclical nature of the world: for any natural event to take place, it must have a beginning and an end, and this natural event repeats itself relentlessly. The antithesis between the fixed human perspective constructed by their daily memories of their physical surroundings and the ever-changing cyclical nature enhances the self-consciousness of human beings, and further accentuates the human’s separation from the natural process. As an inevitable consequence of this strong self-consciousness, humans begin to have a construct an ideology of persistent contrast between their own wills and the pervasive rhythms of the nature.

This corresponds to the first step within our model of human behavior: humans begin to be conscious of the dichotomy between controllable and uncontrollable factors.

Instead of taking all their necessities from nature in an obedient way, humans begin their own accumulation of the knowledge of nature for

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creation. In their daily labor, humans memorize the shapes, texture, and hardness of different natural objects, and store these information in their reservoir of knowledge.

As an ultimate concern, humans abstract these particular properties, and separate them into basically two groups: those properties that are conductive to their acquisition of food source; those properties that are hindering to their acquisition of food source. For the first group, these properties are: sharpness, solidness, ductility, lightness, smoothness etc. For the second group, these properties are: bluntness, softness, unwieldiness, heaviness, and roughness etc.

All these characteristics would influence the efficiency of human labor in some way, and humans, in their daily activities, engage with different combinations of these properties.

For example, humans may collect big stones and throw them at their preys to kill them, these stones are hard and some have sharp angles, but they are heavy to carry and transport. This would cause humans to be slow in their chasing for animals and give these preys chances of escape. Also, humans may use the branches of big trees as weapons to battle the animals. These branches are much lighter in comparison with the stones and are thus easy and convenient to carry and transport. Humans would use these branches with agility in their hunting activities. However, these branches are generally less solid then the stones, they are fragile to forces and crashes and are likely to break, and again, beasts would have chances of escape. Humans become aware of these inherent properties in their daily lives, and are able to generalize them to the recognitions and analysis of other objects.

With this familiarity, humans become capable of distinguishing between the underlying pros and cons of every choice of action they made in their daily activities of food acquisition in terms of their influence on their labor efficiency.

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This corresponds to the second step within our model of human behavior: humans are categorizing the actionable movements within the set of controllable factors (their choice of weapons for hunting, collecting, and ways of doing it etc.) into contributive conducts and futile conducts under the framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors (the hunting arena: the natural environment, the biological characteristics of the preys etc.).

After the identifications of these different characteristics of the natural objects around them, humans then choose their actionable movements among their set of controllable factors by determining which natural weapon to wield in their daily hunting taking into account both the biological structures of the animals and the terrains of the locales for their hunting.

For example, given that their preys are wild rabbits living in the forests who have fast speed but fragile body, humans would choose branches fallen from big trees as their weapon. Given that their preys are large and bulky bears living in the high mountains with strong bodies but slow movements, humans would choose to carry the big stones as weapons in their attacks.

That is to say, given any specific type of prey and the natural conditions of their hunting arena, humans choose their weapons from nature which possess the maximum amount of conductive properties while the minimum amount of hindering properties. This corresponds to the third step within our model of human behavior: humans build their behavior by making the choice of exhaustive accumulation of contributive conducts and disposal of futile conducts within the set of controllable factors

The story of human behavior in the society of collectors and hunters doesn't end here, because, after all, we haven’t reach the point on how exactly does human invent their tools. This invention corresponds to the process that humans systematically and scientifically harness the

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power of Asymmetry, and, it is the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and the physical nature in this complex.

Normally, humans would only be able to base their actions on the peculiarities of their situations: that is humans have to choose their actionable movements by comparing the specifics of the exact situations that they are facing with: forest rabbits means the choice of fallen branches, mountain bears entails the usage of boulders. A fatal disadvantage is that: these choices do not have generalizable values.

Try to think the situation in which humans accidentally encounter chimpanzees when they are hunting rabbits in the forest. Should they wield their branches to fight these nimble and powerful beasts? The more likely story is that humans themselves would be endangered by the vicious attacks of the flocks of angry chimpanzees.

Another natural outgrowth of the separation of conductive properties and hindering properties is the mental creation of an imaginary gadget which possesses all the conductive properties while excludes all the hindering properties. This imaginary gadget is genuinely the embodiment of the perfection of human choice in an effort to maximize the efficiency of hunting.

For example, humans imagine a hunting weapon that is: light, sharp, solid, ductile, and smooth to hold. This imaginary weapon would largely facilitate humans’ hunting activities.

In practice, this imaginary weapon is almost impossible to produce for humans at that stage of civilization. A more reasonable guess is that humans try their best to approximate it by making moderate levels of trade-offs in its fabrication between the realization of conductive properties (sharpness, solidness etc.) and the acceptance of hindering properties (heaviness, roughness etc.). The competitive relationship is evident and transparent at this point.

Occasionally, humans would get in touch with nature-produced weapons that possess each of these characteristics separately in their

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daily lives. Humans then subjectively extract these properties, separate them into groups, and invent a new tool to synthesize as much beneficial properties and as less harmful properties as they can.

This approximating synthesis of characteristics is precisely what generates the set of ingenious tools that human creates which are originally heterogeneous from their nature. With the invention of tools, humans transfer those various indigenous hunting choices that they are forced to make every day in regards to the specifics of the situation that they are facing into a single pre-meditated humanized device with a combination of versatile characteristics. The designing and making process of this artifact is what converts their volatile experience of searching for the generally unreliable natural weapons into the direct application of a definite and reliable artifact that possess most of conductive characteristics while less hindering characteristics.

For example, humans are able to carve stone into sharp and thin edges and cover the end of this edge with smooth fells for handling. Thus, no matter what kind of animals they meet, a prudent hunter would be able to wield this weapon to fulfil their duty: whether we are talking about running rabbits, bulky chimpanzees, strong bears etc. they are all vulnerable to it. As this tool incorporate the characteristics of sharpness, solidness and lightness (they can be hollow), humans are freed from their daily decisions and are able to carry this versatile weapon in any occasions without the need to base their own decisions on the natural conditions. This corresponds to the stage described in our model of human behavior that humans convert the futile conducts into contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors, the process that humans exploit the hidden Asymmetry within the sets of reversals to maximize the desirability of the eventual form of physical reality after the alternations caused by their behaviors.

Our final concern for this illustration should rest on the stipulation of the source of Asymmetry, i.e. how the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human behavior and the physical reality is settled in practice.

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To accomplish this task, we establish a quantitative model and base our analysis on the results produced by the forecasts of the model.

E. The Specification of the Quantitative Model of Human Behavior and the Determination of the Competitive Nash Equilibrium as the Source of Asymmetry:

In order to quantitatively measure the interactive forces between human behavior and physical reality, we push the definitions of our original terminologies to a more detailed level.

First, we assign a cardinal number to any given form of physical reality to denote its level of desirability.

The actionable movements within the set of controllable factors are translated into exogenously effective alternations that would change the level of desirability of the initial physical reality, and we denote these alternations under the framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors as either positive or negative cardinal numbers that would be added to the level of desirability of the initial physical reality.Postulate 2.10: Measured quantitatively, the eventual effect of human behavior on the physical reality is the addition of the level of desirability of the initial physical reality and the alternations of the chosen actionable movements under the framework of translation structured by uncontrollable factors.

For a given set of controllable factors, there exists a cardinal number that corresponds to the average alternation of all the actionable movements under the framework of translation structured by the set of uncontrollable factors, as the cardinality of this set is always pre-determined and remains to be finite. To simplify our exposition, we give the following definition.

Threshold: The average alternation of all actionable movements within a given set of controllable factors under the framework of translation structured by uncontrollable factors.

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Threshold always measure the general ability of human behavior to improve the desirability of a given physical reality.

Another important parameter in our model of human behavior is the relative quantity of contributive conducts and futile conducts within the set of controllable factors. The quantitative definition of contributive and futile conducts, in this case, however, should be a little different for our original one.

According to our original definition, the contributive conducts increase the level of desirability of the initial physical reality, which means that they possess a positive alternation under the framework of transformation structured by uncontrollable factors. By the same token, the futile conducts correspond to those actionable movements that possess a negative or null alternation under the framework of translation structured by the set of uncontrollable factors.

In order to accentuate the comparability between contributive conducts and futile conducts, we modify this definition a little bit and set the point of comparison as the average alternation, the threshold, rather than zero.

Contributive conducts: actionable movements within the set of controllable factors that possess an alternation larger than the threshold of this set.

Futile conducts: actionable movements within the set of controllable factors that possess an alternation smaller or equal to the threshold of this set.

Contributive conducts represent the potential momentum to increase the effective alternation of human behavior, while futile conducts represent the potential inertia to decrease the effective alternation of human behavior .

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Genuinely, the original definition of futile and contributive conducts becomes a sub-case of this definition: when the threshold equals zero , our new definition coincides with the original one . That is to say: our new definitions of futile and contributive conducts is a generalized version of the old one .

With these definitions, we could proceed to stipulate the gauge that measures the relative quantity of contributive conducts and futile conducts within a given set of controllable factors.

Effective content: the ratio of the number of contributive conducts within the given set of controllable factors to its cardinality. The effective content is always between 0 and 1.

Effective content always measure the potential efficiency of human behavior, it characterizes the ease with which human behavior could search for and accumulate contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors.

In our quantitative model of human behavior, we set the independent variable as the threshold, and the dependent variable as the effective content. And we incorporate the two competing forces: the endogenous alternation effect of the human behavior and the exogenous self-evolving physical reality which are fixed as given for any complex (defined previously: an independent entity comprised of the actionable movements and uncontrollable factors and their interactions with each other).

We now continue our discussion by exploring these two forces separately, and then superimpose them to complete our analysis.

The side of human intention: humans construct their behavior out of their pursuit for maximization of the eventual desirability of the physical reality. Thus, the higher the threshold, the higher their satisfactory level of effective content. More precisely, the higher the given level of threshold, the higher the effective content that human intention is willing to have. This rule can be illustrated as follow:

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The side of physical reality: physical reality is always external to human decisions, as it does not take into account the pursuit and attainment of human satisfaction. So, for any random level of threshold, the effective content of the set of controllable factors in a given physical reality remains constant, which means: from the perspective of physical reality, the effective content is perfectly inelastic to the changes in threshold. This rule can be illustrated as follow. Here, we denote the given effective content determined by the translational effect of the uncontrollable factors as the initial Level.

Now we are ready to superimpose these two curves and determine the first equilibrium level of effective content.

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As illustrated above, the first equilibrium level of effective content is settled at the initial level. The equilibrium corresponds to a specific level of threshold, we denote it as t1.

The next step is to introduce the alternations of human behaviors into this model. As proposed previously, human behavior alters the physical reality in ways that maximizes the potential desirability of the eventual form of the initial reality.

Thus, the immediate consequence of the execution of a human behavior is a rightward shift of the curve of physical reality.

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We can see from the graph that: the curve of physical reality has shifted from p1 to p2, the equilibrium efficient content has been shifted to e1 from the initial level, and the equilibrium threshold has shifted from t1 to t2.

These changes can be interpreted as: the execution of human behavior caused an increase in the equilibrium level of effective content as well as an increase in the equilibrium level of threshold. We will analyze these alternations in turn.

An increase in the equilibrium level of effective content means that: the ratio between the number of contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors and its cardinality has increased. As cardinality is fixed previously in our model, this increase must be characterized by an increase in the number of contributive conducts. Again, the cardinality is fixed, this also implies that the number of futile conducts must have been decreased. A conversion between futile conducts and contributive conducts must have taken place .

This process quantitatively delineates the stage of our model of human behavior that in order to maximize the eventual desirability of the physical reality human behavior converts the futile conducts into contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors by exploiting the Asymmetry between the sets of reversals.

It seems like: if we constantly execute the desirability-maximizing human behavior, we could always lead to an increase in the effective content until it reaches its maximum value 1.

However, this is not true, because there is another change caused by the execution of human behavior that accompanies the increase in the equilibrium level of effective content: the increase in the equilibrium level of threshold.This implicates the fact that: in the given complex, more actionable conducts are about to be categorized as futile conducts and less

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actionable conducts are about to be categorized as contributive conducts as the point of comparison has been leveled up.

The net effect of this series of changes is a decrease in the effective content in the equilibrium physical reality.

Consequently, the line of physical reality must be shifted leftward to accommodate this decline. Illustrated as follows:

By the same token, the line of physical reality is shifted from p2 to p3, and the equilibrium level of threshold declines from t2 to t3.

This implies that the point of comparison has been pushed down, and more actionable movements would be categorized as contributive conducts and less actionable movements would be categorized as futile conducts.

The net effect of this series of changes is an increase in effective content in the new equilibrium physical reality.

Consequently, the line of physical reality must be shifted rightwards (from p3 to p4) to accommodate this increase. Illustrated as follows:

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Just like in the previous deductions, there is a change in the equilibrium level of threshold (from t3 to t4). This implies that the effective content in the resulted equilibrium physical reality must change subsequently, which, shifts the line of physical reality again.

This process repeats itself until it reaches a point that the change in the equilibrium level of threshold is small enough so that it would not substantially influence the effective content in the resulted equilibrium physical reality, and we call this point the stable peak.

Stable peak: an equilibrium point from which no further shifts of the line of physical reality is possible because the changes in the equilibrium level of threshold from the previous equilibrium point is small enough so that it would not substantially influence the effective content in the resulted equilibrium physical reality.

The illustration of the stable peak after the execution of the first human behavior is given as follows:

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This stable peak corresponds to the net result of an execution of human behavior. And it is the competitive result between human intention and physical reality. The force of human behavior always shift the physical reality in the direction that increases the effective content; the physical reality absorbs this force and oscillates due to the constriction of the changes in threshold which would generally alter the effective content in the opposite direction .

Now, we are clear about the net effect of human behavior on the physical reality and effective content described by its stable peak, a natural question to ask is: what is the limit of the execution of human behavior?

As we learned from the previous analysis, a human behavior that intends to shift the line of physical reality rightwards in order to convert futile conducts into contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors by exploiting the Asymmetry hidden in the sets of reversals is accompanied by the increase of the equilibrium level of threshold. This would result in a decrease in the effective content and unwillingly force the line of physical reality to shift leftwards.

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As a result, the relative position of the stable peak of a human behavior with respect to the initial line of physical reality is determined by the relative size of these two shifts.

If the shifting effect of human behavior is larger than the shifting effect of changes in threshold, then the stable peak of the human behavior would be at the right of the initial line of physical reality (as illustrated through the previous graphs), this means that the net effect of human behavior is an increase in the level of effective content: a success in exploitation of Asymmetry, meaning that there still exists marginal Asymmetry that is not fully utilized. .

If the shifting effect of human behavior is smaller than the shifting effect of changes in threshold, then the stable peak of the human behavior would be at the left of the initial line of physical reality (not graphically illustrated here, but can be generalized from the previous situation), this means that the net effect of human behavior is a decrease in the level of effective content: a failure in exploitation of Asymmetry, meaning that there is no more marginal Asymmetry on which human behaviors could capitalize.

Theorem 2.11: The existence of marginal Asymmetry depends on the relative shifting effects of human behavior and changes in threshold. If the shifting effect of human behavior outweighs the shifting effect of changes in threshold, there exists unexploited marginal Asymmetry, vice versa.

With this theorem, we are able to establish the final state of the physical reality, or, the largest extent to which human behavior is able to increase the effective content, as a competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and the physical reality

As long as the shifting effect of human behavior outweighs the shifting effects of changes in threshold, humans should always execute desirability-maximizing human behavior, as there still exists unexploited marginal Asymmetry, which means that there are

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unrealized potential conversions between futile conducts and contributive conducts.

So there must exists a point at which the shifting effect of human behavior equals the shifting effect of changes in threshold. From this point, no further shifting in human behavior is going to increase the effective content as further shifting would entail a larger shifting effect of changes in threshold and would decrease the effective content.

At this point, all marginal Asymmetry has been fully exploited, and human intention has maximized its ability of leveling up the effective content. Thus, human intention would have no unilateral incentive to deviate from this point. Moreover, this point corresponds to the stable peak of the last human behavior, which means that: the changes in threshold is small enough so that it would not significantly change the effective content, then the line of physical reality would not undergo further shifts as a pure consequence of changes in threshold. Then, the physical reality would not have unilateral incentive to deviate from this point.

Indeed, this point is the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and physical reality.

We give a graphical illustration of this as follow:

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As seen from the graph, each human behavior produces a stable peak, and we denote the stable peak of the nth behavior by Pn

*. Each human behavior would shift the line of physical reality rightwards to a stable peak, until it reaches the Nth human behavior at which the shifting effect of human behavior is equal to the shifting effect of changes in threshold, the line of physical reality labelled with Pn

**.

At this line, no further leftward shifts of human behavior is possible, and the intersection between the line of physical reality and human intention produces the competitive Nash Equilibrium.

This competitive Nash Equilibrium corresponds to an equilibrium level of efficient content en

**, and an equilibrium level of threshold tn

**. The difference between en** and the Initial level is the Sources

of Asymmetry. This difference stipulates the largest extent to which human behavior could exploit the Asymmetry hidden in the sets of reversals to convert futile conducts into contributive conducts. The difference between tn

** and t1 is what we call the Threshold Enhancement. This difference is an inevitable by-product of the improvement in the effective content realized by human behavior.

Furthermore, the sources of Asymmetry always represents the underlying space of optimization for human behavior until it reaches the limit stipulated by the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and physical reality.

Thus this model has fulfilled its duty of providing a quantitative description of the concept of Asymmetry based on our theory of human behavior and an illustration of the assertion that we made previously: the source of Asymmetry is determined by the competitive Nash Equilibrium between Human Intention and Physical Reality.

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F. Model Interpretation: A Qualitative Reflection

As we acquired in the last sub-section of the quantitative model for human behavior, the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and physical reality is ultimately determined by the exploitation of Asymmetry by human behaviors to the point at which the shifting effect of human behavior is equal to the shifting effect of threshold.

What qualitative explanation can we give about this quantitative result? And what exactly do these two shifting effects represent respectively pertaining our model of human behavior?

As a matter of fact, our quantitative model of human behavior has revealed an astonishing qualitative property of human intention in any given complex. We analyze this result step by step to reach this property.

The effect that any human intention seeking to convert futile conducts into contributive conducts under the framework of translation structured by the uncontrollable factors (i.e. in the physical reality) would have a twofold consequence:

First, the equilibrium effective content of the set of controllable factors would increase. This indicates that humans are now able to construct their behaviors by selecting more contributive conducts and less futile conducts within the set of controllable factors. Their behavior would generally lead to an alternation in the physical reality with a higher level of desirability.

We can summarize this fact that as follows: the Asymmetry-exploiting human behaviors simultaneously improve their own efficiency to achieve desirability.

Second, the average level of alternation (the threshold) would increase in a positive direction, which stems the arbitrary growth in the efficiency of human behavior. Due to the dependence of the

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categorization of contributive conducts and futile conducts on the threshold, the immediate effect of human behavior that increases the effective content would be confined to a smaller level, and, when it reaches the competitive Nash Equilibrium, this confinement even outweighs the human and makes the net outcome a negative one.

Remember the fact that the effective contents always measure the potential efficiency of human behavior and the threshold measures the general ability of human behavior to improve the desirability of the given physical reality, the second effect of human behavior described above leads to the surprising fact that: when the general ability of human behavior to improve the desirability of physical reality has been increased, the efficiency of their behavior would decrease, as now it would be more difficult for them to search for and accumulate contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors.

This conclusion seems to be an implausible paradox at the first glance. However, it makes reasonable sense when one try to reconsider it in a real situation.

Take the previous example on the society of collectors and hunters as the context of understanding this fact. The choice of human behavior in that context, as we already discussed, mainly corresponds to the act of tool fabrication. Through the invention of tools, humans transfer their daily decisions of picking up a suitable natural weapon into the single usage of this humanized device which synthesizes much of the conductive properties and less of the hindering properties than those naturally generated weapons. When a human behavior has accomplished the wills of human intentions of making such a versatile tool, it actually increases the effective content of the controllable factors: as now, human behaviors would have more contributive conducts to choose (the functions of their weapons determine the type of effective hunting they could choose, the more the function, the more the effective hunting).

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At the same time, however, with the boost up in their effective content, human behavior also gains a higher level of threshold. This corresponds to the fact that human behaviors now have a generally higher ability to improve the desirability of the physical reality (with the humanized hunting weapon, their hunting activities now become generally more effective in comparison to their past).

As a result, it becomes more difficult for them to accumulate contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors due to the fact that: now, with those ingenious tools already invented, it is unlikely that humans could again find some other way to push their hunting effectiveness to a more advanced level. This corresponds to the statement that we are trying to convey: the efficiency of their behavior has been decreased.

Thus, we have consummated our discussion of the second effect of human behavior. We could summarize these two effects qualitatively in the following theorem, which is the second most important qualitative theorem of this article.

Theorem 2.12: Each human behavior within a given complex under the human intention of desirability-maximization would immediately increase the efficiency of the subsequent human behaviors. Also, it will cause an increase in the general ability of subsequent human behaviors to improve the desirability of physical reality, and in turn, decrease their efficiency.

The net result of human behavior on the efficiency of the subsequent behaviors is a combination of these two opposite effects. The first effect which increases the efficiency represents the willingness of human intention or its idealized reality; the second effect which decreases the efficiency represents the balancing rules of the physical reality that is external to human intention.

At the very early stage of development, the effect that represents the human intention to increase the efficiency outweighs the effect that represents the balancing rules of physical reality to decrease

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efficiency. We denote the difference between these two effects as the operable range.

Operable Range: the difference between the relative strength of the effect representing human intention to increase the efficiency and the effect representing the balancing rule of physical reality to decrease the efficiency of a given human behavior.

Operable range always represents the discrepancy between the human efforts to endogenously modify the physical reality according to their idealization and the tacit rules of physical reality to evolve and change in a self-determined exogenous way

The larger the operable range, the stronger the net effects of a human behavior to improve the efficiency of the subsequent human behaviors.

With more and more executions of human behavior, the operable range shrinks until it reaches the point of zero. This point corresponds to the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and physical reality, also, the point that fundamentally determined the sources of Asymmetry.

Thus, an important qualitative implication of this model is that: humans should endeavor to enlarge the operable range in order to be able to push the competitive Nash Equilibrium further to a higher level of efficiency (effective content).

Next, we continue our discussion on the notion of Asymmetry in the context of market economy.

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3. The Manifestation of Asymmetry in the Contemporary Market Economy: Its Form and Significance in the Contemporary Market Structure

A. The Form of Asymmetry in the Market Economy:

As we’ve discussed before, the level of desirability under the context of the contemporary market economy is directly related to the person’s economics success (his or her effectiveness of participating into economic activities) in that situation. The larger the economic success, the higher the level of desirability, and vice versa.

Economic activities are exchanges in essence. Myriads of human beings are synthesized in a mutually present platform, and virtually exchange their own labor translated by the set of uncontrollable factors (technology, capital, distribution channels etc. that determines the exogenous form of the final product of human labor) for the labor of other people translated by the set of uncontrollable factors (technology, capital, distribution channels etc. that determines the exogenous form of the final product of human labor).

Take this fact into consideration, there are always two fundamental decisions that humans need to scrutinize in their daily lives as market economy participants: what kind of endogenous labor that they are going to choose as their own item used for exchange? And what exogenous labor that they are going to choose as the items that they exchange for?

What bridges these two distinctive decisions and makes them a continuous unity is the monetary system of the modern market economy. The intermediary function of currency and other forms of medium of exchange provides humans with a foundational gauge to base upon when making these two decisions.

More precisely, humans ‘first’ exchange whatever their labor have been exogenously translated into for the medium of exchange, or the

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monetary instruments like currency; ‘second’, all the exogenously translated labors of other participants of this market economy have to be exchanged for by consuming these medium of exchange. To simplify our exposition, we give the following definition.

Commonness of value: medium of exchange in the market economy, including all the monetary instruments.

We’ll have to combine our theory of human behavior with the notion of commonness of value.

Due to the assumption that we’ve made previously that the desirability of any given physical reality in the market economy is directly characterized by the economic success of the person involved, which is ultimately determined by the person’s effectiveness of achieving economic wealth, we can give the following postulates.

Postulate 3.1: The desirability of any physical reality under the context of market economy for a given person is determined by his ability of acquiring commonness of value in this physical reality.

This postulate reduces the focus of our analysis to concern solely about the human decisions on the choice of endogenous labor that would be exogenously translated into services or products and would be ultimately used to exchange for the commonness of value,

Then, according to our model of human behavior, the next step is try to categorically specify the set of controllable factors and uncontrollable factors and then spread the actionable movements within the set of controllable factors into contributive conducts and futile conducts under the framework of translation structured by the set of uncontrollable factors.

The set of controllable factors are determined by the human’s choices of exertion of different kinds of labors. To further clarify our analysis and render it a sense of consistency with the larger background setting, we stipulate that: the set of controllable factors are the

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entirety of different occupation choices faced by the person under discussion.

We could also obtain the set of uncontrollable factors in the similar fashion. As the set of uncontrollable factors translate the actionable movements, i.e. the choices of different occupations, into exogenous products and services that would be used to exchange for commonness value in the marketplace, they are determinants of the market price of each form of service and products generated by their respective occupational labors that are generally produced by the transient market conditions of supply and demands.

With the knowledge of the contents of these two sets, we are ready to separate the set of controllable factors into contributive conducts and futile conducts.

Each occupation choice would brought about a specific amount of cash flow, and as we defined in the quantitative model in the previous section, we denote the average cash flow that these occupation choices in the given set of controllable factors as the threshold.

Any occupational choice in a given set of controllable factors that generates a cash flow higher than the threshold is defined as a contributive conduct.

Any occupational choice in a given set of controllable factors that generates a cash flow lower than the threshold is defined as a futile conduct.

To maximize the eventual desirability of the physical reality, which means to maximize the personal economic success, humans should base their choice of occupation by the exhaustive accumulation of contributive conducts and disposal of futile conducts.

Thus, the predictions made by our model coincide with the phenomenon prevailing in the real market economy: when the market price for a certain product or service has been risen, the

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occupation that involves in the production of this product becomes the contributive conduct in the set of controllable factors for a larger group of people, and subsequently enter people’s choices of occupation on a wider scale, which leads to the significant increase in size of occupational participantions in the relevant industries.

As we proceed with our analysis, a natural step has come forward to the stage described in our model in which humans, aware of their rational pattern of behavior construction, try to convert the futile conducts into contributive conducts within the set of controllable factors in order level up their efficient content.

This means that: the humans would endeavor to make shifts in their set of potentially available occupations by sacrificing those occupation choices that are unattractive from the economic perspectives in acquirement for those occupation choices that are attractive. Recall from our previous discussion that the cardinality of the set of controllable factors is fixed. We now explore the determination of this cardinality.

As stated from the past, the cardinality for any given person is determined by his personal status. Here, the set of controllable factors are specified as the potentially available occupation choices for the given person under discussion, as a consequence, the cardinality corresponds to the total number of potential occupations that are available to the person.

There are mainly three determinants of this number. First, the person’s ability of learning. Holding all the other things constant, the stronger this learning ability, the larger the professional practices and knowledge that this person would be able to accumulate, and the more abundant the set of potential occupations available for this person. Thus, a person’s learning ability is positively related to the cardinality. Second, the person’s willingness for occupational diversity. Holding all the other things constant, the stronger this the willingness for occupational diversity, the larger the set of potential

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occupations that this person is willing to have. Thus, a person’s willingness for occupational diversity is positively related to the cardinality. Third, the volatility of the market conditions. Remember the old saying that: “Don't put the eggs in one basket.” Holding all the other things constant, the more volatile the market conditions, the more uncertain that the cash flow that the person is going to achieve for any given occupation, the stronger the incentive for this person to broaden the set of potentially available occupations in order to be able to accommodate the rapid changes in the market conditions. Thus, the volatility of the market conditions is positively related to the cardinality.

As our concerns about human behaviors so far are in short-run, which means that we take these three factors as given, and purposefully overlook its long-term dynamics. For a given set of these three factors, the person’s cardinality of the set of controllable factors has been fixed i.e. the total number of occupations potentially available to the person is fixed.

With the knowledge of this fact, we can easily see that, when the person under discussion is confined with the fixed cardinality, or the fixed number of potentially available occupations, the conversion that takes place within the set of controllable factors is the only way that will boost up the effective content. As the effective content always measures the efficiency of the subsequent behaviors of this human, the conversion must be adopted to fulfil the original function of human behavior that is aiming at the optimization of the given complex.

We’ll turn to the explorations concerning the cases in which the cardinality of controllable factors are allowed to change possibly in the future works. These cases would correspond to the long-term decisions that humans take to construct their long-run future behaviors during which all the three determinants of the cardinality are allowed to vary. But for now, we’ll only focus on the short-run cases.

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After our discussion on the issue on the cardinality of the set of controllable factors and the short-run necessity of conversion between actionable movements to level-up the effective content, we begin our exploration on how does the parameter of this conversion, the existence of Asymmetry, determine the extent to which these conversions are feasible,

Again, borrowing from our previous assertion, the sources of Asymmetry are determined by the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and physical reality. Human intentions always try to convert the futile conducts, which corresponds to the potential occupation choices generating a cash flow that is less than the threshold, into contributive conducts, which corresponds to the potential occupation choices generating a cash flow that is more than the threshold. This means that under the desirability-maximization of human intention the human behaviors would increase the efficiency of occupational choice.

While the balancing forces of the physical reality will unintentionally level up the threshold, which is the average cash flow that the potential occupation choices within the set of controllable factors is going to generate. This means that: the average ability of the potential occupation choice of cash flow generation would be leveled up, and reluctantly decrease the efficiency of occupational choice.

Under this particular context, the efficiency of occupation choice is identical to the ease with which humans accumulate the potentially available contributive occupation choices, which lays an advancing momentum in the set of controllable factors that would tend to increase the general ability of these occupation choices to generate cash flow.

Note that: this momentum only tends to increase the general ability of cash flow generation of the occupation choices, it is inequivalent to a concrete increase in this general ability of the cash generation . In fact, the concrete increase in this ability would decrease this potential momentum of advancement for the

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average ability, as now one more marginal opportunity of optimization has been exploited, and the further exploitation would more difficult and uneasy to realize.

The sources of Asymmetry under the context of market economy, consequently, is determined when these two forces are equal to each other. When the conversions between the potentially available futile and contributive occupation choices have levelled up the efficiency to the point that upward force in the efficiency as a result of human intention has been completely neutralized by the downward force in efficiency as a result of the increases in the general ability of cash flow generation.

B. The Significance of Asymmetry in the Market Economy: the Salient Anchor and the Observable Indicator of Industrial Vicissitude:

The exploitation of marginal Asymmetry of people when making their general choices of occupations has profound significance for the formation in the institutional configuration of market economy.

According to the previous discussion that we’ve conducted on the specific form of Asymmetry in the market economy, the transient market conditions serve as the basis of direction that lead people to flux into those industries that benefit from a high level of market equilibrium by increasing the ability of cash flow generation of the relevant occupations and intentionally push them into the set of contributive conducts of a wider range of market participants.

Thus, the exploitation of Asymmetry simultaneously determines the relative rivalry relationships between different industries competing for social resources. Any pair of industries between which there exists unexploited Asymmetry would undergo the process of the transfer of social resources from the industry with lower average level of ability of cash flow generation to the industry with higher average level of ability of cash flow generation.

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This process would continue on until there exists no more unexploited Asymmetry between any pair of industries, which indicates the fact that all the participants in the market economy has maximized his or her own level of effective content, or, the efficiency of their occupation choice. This result would have a twofold consequence: the average ability of cash flow generation of different industries would be risen to a much higher level by human’s exhaustive exploitation of the underlying Asymmetry in the market economy; the comparability between industries tends to approach a moderate level at which no further rivalry could lead to any significant shifts of social resources as the subsequent increase in the general level of ability of cash flow generation hinders the growth in efficiency of occupation choice.

This argument would give rise to the third most important qualitative result of this article.

Theorem 3.2: On the macro-level of economic activities, the signals of market prices are conveyed through people’s exploitation of Asymmetry, and the limit of this exploitation, i.e. the competitive Nash Equilibrium between human intention and the physical reality on the macro-scale, determines the eventual allocation of social resources to each of the different industries involved in the market process.

Market price generates the initial signal of resource allocation, the behavioral exploitation of Asymmetry by myriads of people transmits this signal through the spectrum of economic entities, and the limit of this exploitation (competitive Nash Equilibrium) determines the extent to which these signals would continue to reverberate and shape the eventual configuration of the allocation of social resources.

That’s why the Asymmetry under the context of market economy acts both as the anchor to pin down the relative boundaries of social resource absorption between different industries and the highly observable indicator that demonstrates their respective state of

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thriving and falling in terms of their relative positions in comparison to the average ability of cash flow generation for all the industries under consideration.