Economic progress was not my choice of words. Note that I put the word "progress" in [ironic] quotation marks. I don't, however, eschew small-p progress as a synonym for "better than this," as distinct from the triumphal capital-p March of Progress. But you already knew that.
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 9:08 PM, Eubulides <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mar 21, 2014, at 12:14 AM, Tom Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > > Ron, > > I said nothing whatsoever about economic "progress." I specifically > challenged the meaningfulness of the notion of economic "growth". Economic > *progress,* by contrast, would require discarding the obsolete and > discredited terminology from the mid-1950s. > > > > ========== > > Yet we should cling to the discredited terminology of "economic progress"? > > Accumulation isn't progress; progress is progress? Labor displacing > technological change isn't progress; progress is progress? > > "This material is in itself the ultimate substance. Evolution, on the > materialistic theory, is reduced to the role of being another word for the > description of the changes of the external relations between portions of > matter. There is nothing to evolve, because one set of external relations > is as good as any other set of external relations. There can merely be > change, purposeless and unprogressive. But the whole point of the modem > doctrine is the evolution of the complex organisms from antecedent states > of less complex organisms. The doctrine thus cries aloud for a conception > of organism as fundamental for nature. It also requires an underlying > activity -- a substantial activity -- expressing itself in achievements of > organism."[3]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_internal_relations#cite_note-3> > > > "I think recent work in computational complexity theory raises the > possibility that there may be another "critical mass" for a knowledge > representation, a maximum size threshold above which belief systems must in > effect disintegrate. For a representation to qualify as being understood by > an epistemic agent, the agent must be able to perceive an adequate > proportion of the interrelations among elements of a set. Otherwise, the > agent will not be a ble to identify and eliminate enough of the > inconsistencies that arise...The range of intractability results leads one > to wonder in turn whether knowledge systems of some finite size may be so > computationally unweildy in this way as to shatter...[Christopher Cherniak > "Minimal Rationality"] > > http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2000m09.4/msg00018.html > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
