Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
>
> Sounds like the difference between Newtonian Physics and Quantum Mechanics
> but I'm no Physicist. I only read what they say about it.
[snip]
Maybe the following is what Ray is saying:
Newtonian physics is a paradigm of the scientist observing
things that the scientist imagines go on without being
influenced by the scientist observing them. (This is,
of course, wrong to what the scientist is doing, but
that's beside the point here).
Quantum physics recognizes that the act of doing an experiment
affects what is being experimented on.
So a Newtonian economics would describe how the economy
behaves as if people did not influence anything (an
obviously absurd notion, but that does not keep it from
powerfully affecting the social system...).
A quantum physics inspired economics would emphasize that
the economist's acts of theorizing (publishing, etc.)
influence what happens in the social system.
There are, of course, all sorts of nonsensical
"ideas" that supposedly come out of quantum mechanics
like (1) that human freedom is really the uncertainty
of the energy states of subatomic particles, and (2) that
we are simultaneously living every conceivable world
even though we don't experience any except
one of them, e.g., that
in another parallel world Gore won and is currently
President of the United States, and in yet another
world an alert gate clerk at Logan airport prevented
Mohammad Atta from getting on a plane on "911", etc.
What seems to a person *is* for that person.
(--Protagoras)
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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