From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of ryanrc111
Sent: Friday, October 8, 2021 12:27 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK Nobels in Medicine/Physiology

Brandon and Gregg,

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Ryan, it is important for me to clarify some things.  I do believe that some award-winning economics work of years past is not very scientific by contemporary standards.  I’m referring to Hayek and Friedman.  They both won Nobels for work that, brilliant as it is, makes a lot of assumptions about human nature that are now obsolete.  They use these amazing analysis tools that you listed to derive conclusions regarding what would be the best economic policies for governments to enact and maintain.  There have been successes and failures with the implementation of these free market policies, especially in the developing world, where these economic theories were pushed with the strong support of the IMF and World Bank.  Quite often, this only led to widening wealth gaps and an increasingly winner-take-all economy.  A more nuanced understanding of human nature, such as how the inner states given within UTOK’s BIT and IM are expressed through public justification, I think would provide a deeper explanation of why free market policies tend to lead to widening wealth gaps to the point where it destabilizes the entire socio-political structure.  The point is that whatever scientific fields we consider to be worthy of prestigious awards, such as the Nobel Prize, should have baked-in considerations for interdependencies with adjacent branches of science.  There is way more to this whole thing and I think everyone knows I’m not a specialist in any of this, but I don’t think that discredits me from offering commentary.

 

Brandon  

 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of ryanrc111
Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 2021 10:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK Nobels in Medicine/Physiology

 

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There is no junk social science . There are only better and worse tools. They just need to be reconfigured for clarity and better cumulative learning. 

 

The biggest problem is the tower of babel problem. Lots of specialized models for specialized purposes. People in the public crave simplicity and deep realism in social science.  That's THEIR misunderstanding of social forces and structures. There is no deep realism in social science.  It's all estimates of complex patterns not a true accurate model...

 

Social science is not concerned with a life-sized model of everything.  It's concerned with tools for solving specific problems.  

 

Even world systems theory is a gross simplification of a complex system but it WORKS to provide us with tools for predicting patterns of institutions

 

Only a madman would use it as some sort of ultimately true model of the world. That's simply not how the social sciences work.... 

 

 

 

On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, 4:11 PM ryanrc111 <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Brandon,

 

Never ever assume economists are idiots or that they don't understand their own simplification of human behavior.  

 

No offense but I can tell by what you write that you're not trained in economics. 

 

It's 100 times more sophisticated than you're making it out to be. 

 

For example, the strawman of rational self interest is a wonderfully complex topic. wet assume any economist doesn't understand thwre are tradeoffs in simplifying human behavior along utilitarian lines. 

 

Moreover, the economics on which economics  Nobel prizes are based is very diverse...very diverse indeed. 

 

One of my Schools of training was the Cafnegie Mellon tradition which includes eight Nobel prizes ... including Oliver Williamson's transaction costs economics which is a rare verbal theory but extremely powerful update of Coase... also James March the organization theory guru who helped invent a complexity view of organizational dynamics .... and Klepper, the great economists who popularized the study of industry clusters ... all of whom I have used in my own work as an economist.

 

Herbert Simon developed the theory of bounded rationality back in the 1940s-1960s... in other words Brandon, what you are referring to is "rational choice theory" which was already obsolete by 1960 as a microeconomic theory. The mainstream of economics has preferred bounded rational models since thr 1970s. (Nobody told you apparently.... it's okay, the political left is constantly gaslighting mainstream economics to exploit the public and sow public doubt and confusion in economics ). Even still, you misunderand rational choice theory. 😉  

 

economists model social altruism and group preferences within the paradigm of rational choice. It's not hard. You simply add group utility to individual utility functions. Richard Dawkins made the same argument back in the 1970s about evolution: you can easily model altruism as a rational self interested activity...you merely include an individual emotional preference for group outcomes. Boom, it's that simple. When I was doing behavioral economics in the lab at U Pittsburgh, we went through all the studies on "warm glow", "halo", and other behavioral models where the self benefits from doing good things for others. It's standard in behavioral economics...trust me, these  economists know what they are modeling and why. Never assume they don't understand their own work well and why they make simplification assumptions.  They do it because it's mathematically sound. 

 

However rational choice theory still is a wonderful tool for macroeconomics. You just need to understand when and why it works and when it's a bad assumption.  

 

If you want me to do a video on popular misunderstanding of economics, I can do so. Honestly Brandon, the number of people who understand mainstream economics *but didn't have at least a masters degree in economics* is extremely tiny. 

 

Economics does not try to model reality exactly as it takes place. That's not efficient!!!!! Let me repeat, economics is the science of social efficiency and it would be extremely inefficient to model human behavior as realistically as possible. The purpose of economic simplification is to do amazing tricks with math to make extremely difficult complexity problems somehow solvable. It's pretty amazing stuff. Any great economist will tell you they are simplifying the world for predictive reasons and if it were a bad prediction they would change it. But if the predictions are strong they will use simplification.  

 

But to understand economics, you need to start with an understanding of :

Set theory and proof techniques 

Matrix algebra 

Linear algebra 

Differential equations and systems of second and third order equations 

Recursive equations and infinite series 

Network mathematics 

Applied statistics on a grad level

Logic and logical axiomatic systems

 

And of course, game theory 

 

If you don't have this math, you'll constantly misinterpret what the claims of economists really are and why they claim what they claim ....

 

Thanks 

 

Robert 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, 12:45 PM Brandon Norgaard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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Well, a some of the economic theories that have mathematical formalization and that have earned Nobel Prizes for certain people are really not very scientific.  They often start with a very simplistic conception of human nature as being fully rational and self-interested and then derive some sort of large-scale formulas or trends from that premise.  I can deconstruct this genre of economics theory as driven by wishful thinking on the part of those already wealthy and privileged.  This is the sort of thing that has often in the past won Nobel Prizes and it is not very scientific because it does not have conscilience with the adjacent branches of science (psychology, sociology).  Also, some psychological theories do have mathematical formalization, such as Commons’ MHC.  He hasn’t won a Nobel because there isn’t one for psychology.  MHC does seem to have conscilience with neuro-biology and with sociology.  The Nobel Prizes are quite notable and the way they differentiate the different fields and their criteria for awarding prizes has an impact on how people in general see science and how they evaluate scientific legitimacy.  Perhaps the Nobel committee could re-evaluate their system and create a new prize for psychology.

 

Brandon

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx
Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 2021 4:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK Nobels in Medicine/Physiology

 

Thanks, Robert.

 

In slight contrast to World Systems 3.0, the UTOK is situated to help people see the twin conceptual problems of (a) the Enlightenment Gap and its inevitable downstream consequence (b) the problem of psychology. This is a discussion of “is,” but not at the level of empirical findings or predictions, but at the level of metaphysics, and our onto-epistemological mapping of ontic and epistemic processes. Of course, UTOK is a naturalistic “Metaphysical-Empirical” System, so we are very much concerned with data we can see. But I have found that the clearest line of attack is in our propositional organization (I lean slightly more toward rationalism than empiricism by nature).

 

Academic/scientific psychology is defined as the science of behavior and mental processes, such that “behavior” is the thing that is scientifically accessible, and mental processes are the inferred mental causes of observable activity. This epistemological-methodological framing of psychology makes it conceptually “soft”. Although I have not studied the justification systems that gave rise to the Nobel Prizes in science, I strongly suspect that the reason there is no Nobel in psychology is directly linked to this issue. Interestingly, Economics did achieve some success in mathematical formalization, which is likely why a prize was developed in that category.

 

Best,
Gregg

 

 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of ryanrc111
Sent: Tuesday, October 5, 2021 3:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK Nobels in Medicine/Physiology

 

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Brandon,

 

One of the big gaps in perspective is whether a theorist describes the social as the concrete organization of the real world or as the abstract mechanisms underneath what is institutional. 

 

This is a classic example:

 

The Nobel prize is a real institution that was not organized according to theory but according to the biases of Nobel and the Swedes who administrate the prize. 

 

The real world is like that: it never matches the pure abstractions that some people hope it will. 

 

Similarly speaking : our entire system of academic knowledge is messy. We have arguments routinely over what constitutes an academic field or subfield... or which research questions or models belong to what group of scholars. 

 

However sometimes the abstractions match the concrete institutional structure well. When that happens, the world takes special notice of the harmony. 

 

For example our economic institutions closely match economic theory ( Of course you're gonna always hear some whiny heterodox person claim that this is not the case, usually because the whiny person has a cultish commitment to a radical economy that doesn't exist )... 

 

You will notice that my world systems analysis is not a discussion of oughts but of "is"es...and thus I don't try to predict my own pet ideas as being *the future*. I make predictions that are grounded in the messy concrete truths of real world institutions...

 

 For example some people want to abstract the world system into only 2 variables: information and energy...  Certainly those 2 variables are dominant but this is an abstraction that doesn't represent the world as it actually operates. In other words we do not have major institutions on the world level that organize our world based on categories of energy and information. In the real structure: energy and information production (education and higher learning) are both considered to be sectors and they are put alongside other sectors actors such as services, real estate, and transportation....

 

So sometimes the abstractions that nerds love so much are not corresponding to the real world institutions.  

 

A great theorist explains these gaps rather than assumes this is an error of humanity !!!!!

 

Thanks Brandon!!!

 

Robert 

 

 

 

On Tue, Oct 5, 2021, 2:29 PM Brandon Norgaard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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You know, I was recently thinking about how the Nobel prizes can be seen to align with the main branches of sciences outlined within TOK, but there is no prize for psychology.  That is a shame.  I can list the Nobel prizes and assess how they might align with the branches of science and planes of existence within TOK:

 

Nobel Prize                             Analog within TOK

Physics                                     Physical science / matter plane

Chemistry                                 Physical science / matter plane

Economics                                Social science / culture plane

Physiology or Medicine              Biological science / life plane

Peace                                       Not really science-based, but sort of in the realm of Social science / culture plane

Literature                                  Artistic, not scientific, but sometimes covers psychological reflections in character development

 

 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx
Sent: Tuesday, October 5, 2021 3:41 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TOK Nobels in Medicine/Physiology

 

Hi All,

  I encourage folks interested in the nature of the “mind-brain-behavior system” (AKA Mind1, Mind, and the set of mental behaviors as the third plane of existence) to check out this press release describing the Nobel Prizes handed out in Medicine/Physiology described here. Very cool stuff. The fact that this falls under the Nobel category of “Physiology and Medicine” is a good reminder of how the categories and concepts of science that emerged in the Enlightenment resulted in a massively confusing linkage between science and “physicalism”. The “hard” sciences, by which we mean the sciences that have a clear, coherent ontology, “tap out” at psychology because we could effectively frame the ontology of psychology. Thus, we bracket out “the mental” from “the physical” and have the impression that the sciences are revealing the underlying physical reality of our mental worlds. A much better understanding emerges when we realize that we are metaphysically confused.

 

Best,

Gregg

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)

Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.

Check out the Unified Theory Of Knowledge homepage at:

https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/

 

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