Monday, November 30, 2009

Our basis

Moral: Wherein, we see that humans can differ quite a bit as we can observe by looking at the wide variety of human opinions. There are many explanations possible.

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Yet, at the basis for human endeavors, such as that which economics claims as its domain, there is consciousness that has defied any definition via scientific means. Oh yes, there are plenty of theories and wishes. The fact is, folks, that the issue is open and will remain so (t-issue). We can gather the facts as we see them, within our neuropeptidergic limitations and attempt understanding. Too, the operationalistic methods can say 'who cares?' and proceed almost nonchalantly. From this, we get workable methods, many times, of which none ever achieves the silver bullet status (not for very long, that is, and why this need?).

So, we can't have some nice theory about rational agents when the underlying basis is unknown (essentially underdetermined, let's say). That is, any constructionist's model ought to have some sound basis, unless incompleteness is accepted as the reality.

That is one reason why the law comes into play so strongly as mathematics has no hold on the overall perspective. Oh yes, again, we see phenomenal advances, yet do not many of these produce more negative side-effects than benefits? That is the reality behind near-zero, in a sense. We have never had a true accounting.

The clever, and we ought to give them some credit for this (tongue-in-cheek, folks - ah, is this risk management or tranching?), have excelled at keeping themselves from having to endure the consequences related to bad side-effects. Think about it. For example, all sorts of modern methods (lean, etc.) can push problems out to sub-contractors (be it by globalization, in some cases, or otherwise).

What are we to do? Well, it does turn out that the computational can be a tool for intelligence and coherency, if we use it correctly. In terms of the context of this blog, 'correctly' would entail all sorts of things, some of which the financiers, and the best-and-brightest, may find antithetical to their interests.

These themes will continue.

Aside 1: As a reminder, there are three blogs using a different viewpoint. Some issues, such as this one, seem to relate across these viewpoints. Hence, look for more material on truth engineering and 7oops7, as the discussion continues.

Aside 2: One thing that will come to fore is that the advance of abstraction in the recent centuries has had both a good and a bad side. We can use the world/earth dual for a brief explanation. Expect that this topic will be more thoroughly covered as we go along here. So, we know that the earth is round (the sphere is a close approximation, yet precise measurement will detail lopsidedness) in this day and age when the Space Station runs around the earth on a fairly short cycle, comparatively. But, too, we know that the world is flat, essentially is it so when one overlays reality with insights from Hilbert (yes, analog of the Hilbert space). Though, since Da Vinci, we've known about perspective and vanishing lines, within the measure on any person, or personal interactions, we have a very large, and orthogonal space. Even relativity didn't get rid of xyz and time. Wait, what gives here? There are many abstractions that we can superposition over ourselves and our lives. Yet, these are all limiting constructs to what 'being' actually is.

Aside 3: And, folks, what has more being than money? Ah, not so, many will argue. Just conjecture a realm in which money does have more substance than we've thought about (yes, economists limit us), and this realm is only partly computationally supported. Mostly, it's that thing that Ben, and buddies, are trying to inflate. Keynes' notion of animal 'spirits' does not go far enough. So, that realm will be described further.

Remarks:

03/23/2012 -- Renewal of the idea (and related energies) via Cooper and CiE.

02/27/2012 -- This post was a continuation of Our Basis, concerning just how shaky is our perceptual being (from certain views).The 01/01/2012 Remarks (below) points to work by an Eastern European. A recent Atlantic article looks at protozoan influences that may need more of our attention. It's significant that the underlying work was done by a lonely scientist in an Eastern European situation. Western culture has much thanks to offer that part of Europe who bore the brunt of waves of onslaught through the past 1000 years.

01/01/2012 -- Recently ran across the work of Kazimierz Dabrowski. We need to pay more attention to his theory on development. Yes, CEOs (and other takers) as immature (seriously, so). 

08/03/2011 -- The relationship to economics is important.


04/03/2011 -- Need to look at some background.




10/28/2010 -- Warning, train wreck ahead. What train, I had asked? Yes, there is already a wreck, despite the inflated market (those who lost big are still behind).

01/22/2010 -- We need to balance an awareness of the soup that controls synaptic activity with the fact of the wiring aspect. The use of 'neuropeptidergic' mostly reminds those who may have perfect wiring (or think that they do) that their cognitive function is more than can be be modeled by electrical circuitry.

01/06/2010 -- Poor Ben, getting grief and criticism.

12/29/2009 -- Time calls Ben an uber-Nerd.

12/28/2009 -- Ben was named the Time Person of the Year. Nice. We can't call him 'King' as we saw with Alan's 'cult of personality' reign.

12/15/2009 -- Requiem for the dollar (WSJ) and responses.

12/08/2009 -- Consider current CEOs in relation to Paul. Not fair? Well, these guys/gals have set themselves upon some supposed plane that is above the rest of us.

12/01/2009 -- The consumer as focus.

Modified: 03/23/2012

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