[John] And the biggest problem I have with moronists is thinking that randomness explains anything.
[Krimel] I would like to think that puts you in a vanishingly small minority since randomness and probability theory underlie virtually every aspect of modern life. Even in basic Adam Smith capitalist economic theory it is spoken of as the invisible hand. More modern versions of economics look at economics in terms of game theory which looks are the distribution of probable outcomes if rational agents pursue their own self interest. The story of John Nash, one of the founders of game theory, is well known and bares remarkable similarity to Pirsig's own biography, such as we have it. Interestingly, in an interview I heard recently, Nash acknowledged that a significant flaw in game theory is the assumption that human agents act rationally. That assumption was challenged by another Nobel prize winner in economics, Daniel Kahneman. Although he is a psychologist Kahneman and his collaborator Amos Treversky created the field of behavioral economics. They assert that humans have a "sense" of probability. They see this as an innate ability to calculate odds in much the same way as we can estimate time and distance. They also note that while we are pretty good at it we fail miserably in some very interesting ways. Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational" provides a very accessible introduction by one of the leaders in the field. It goes with out saying that the gambling industry, insurance and stock market are all grounded in probability theory. Notice that the unregulated hedge fund market that contributed so mightily to the recent economic collapse what little more than a way of "hedging" market and insurance losses on risky investments. Nicolas Taleb's "Black Swan" talks about this sort of thing and helps one understand why betting on things that have low probabilities of disastrous outcomes like offshore drilling and nuclear power are such bad ideas. If you find out you have cancer or need a serious operation your doctor will explain your condition in terms of probability success or failure of treatment or estimate your probability of living another month or year are whatever. Politics, marketing, law enforcement, traffic control, the transportation industry, shipping... Hell everything in the modern world depends almost entirely on probability and statistics. Our scientific approach to the inorganic level quantum physics and thermodynamics are rooted in probability. At the biological level it is vital to any serious understanding of evolutionary theory and population dynamics. At the social level so many variables are in play and the fields so young that definitive statements are hard to make; but when they are they are couched in probabilistic terms. In fact one could argue that all of science is based on establishing the probability of causal effects gauged against chance outcomes. [John] Tho I appreciated your penny-flipping attempt. [Krimel] Thanks [John] Betterness isn't always apparent to the patterns being interrupted. You have to take the larger view. [Krimel] The larger view? Do you have any idea how long it would take to flip a trillion pennies in a row? If you understood a bit about randomness and it might give you a longer view. [John] And that's the key difference between a moronist and an awgi, the moronist takes the tiny reductionist view, creating reality out of a random bits of nothing, and the awgi sees the big picture. For the bigger picture IS betterness in the final analysis. [Krimel] It seems to me that the AWGI cult sees the value and future of the MoQ through the lens of their own navels. They would eventual place any future work in the field securely in the New Age section of your local books store. In contrast what you call the moronist view sees the MoQ as contributing to a metaphysical position that integrates all of the aforementioned aspects of modern life. Sadly, "better" like "bigger" is entirely a relative term. By the way how deep would you guess your navel to be? Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
