On 11/5/2012 1:19 PM, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Stephen P. King
In the end, we must accept a truth, so in the end,
all truth is pragmatic. We must cast our own vote.
Dear Roger,
Are you familiar with Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem> and the
voting paradox ?
http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2008/02/12/game-theory-tuesdays-someone-is-going-to-be-unhappy-an-illustration-of-the-voting-paradox/
"The executive summary is that whenever there are at least 2 people and
at least 3 options, it's impossible to aggregate individual preferences
without violating some desired conditions, like Pareto efficiency. You
either have to accept that society will not act rationally like an
individual would, or you have to accept that society's preferences will
exactly mimic one person's preferences. In a sense, that makes the
individual a dictator."
I suspect that this impossibility might explain why people are so
easily seduced by arguments like Einstein's quip: "The moon still exists
if I am not looking at it!" We always over-value our own individual
contribution to the definiteness of properties that we observe in the
physical universe. It also might have something to do with theproblem of
Free Will <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/> and the absurd
implications of the Quantum Suicide argument
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality>.
--
Onward!
Stephen
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
