Session April 2022: “Economic theory and models”

Talks “Economics methodologies” by Karl Schlag and “Cybersocialism” by Jan Philipp Dapprich Our April 2022 Forum session was devoted to economics and its possible connections to cell models. Karl Schlag, from the Department of Economics at the University of Vienna, introduced basic concepts used in economic theory and modeling approaches, many of which may find some future application to model cellular behaviors. Then, Jan Philipp Dapprich, from the Philosophy Department of the Free University Berlin, told us about planned economies and presented an economic model that closely resembles Flux Balance Analysis models. Karl gave a comprehensive overview of the main mathematical concepts and some central theorems in economics. He first distinguished between a normative and a positive perspective. An individual’s preferences and choices are described by a personal utility function, a function whose existence is guaranteed under very general conditions by the von Neumann–Morgenstern theore