Re: MONETARY: Politics and Economics

["Dan Parker" <danparker@socialcredit.com>]

Keith, agenda may be overstating a one word impetus,
which is inborne in everyone, but not always acted on.

I think you are correct in the assessment that human nature
can not really be encapuslated in models.  Advertising
programs that proclaim success on this front have not
yet confronted the idea of the survival of the host.

I also think mental exercises could be needed to work
on the future, ala Einstein's proclaimation that problems
cannot be solved at the level they were created at.
Here is a bit that explores this concept.

Paradigms


The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. - Henri Bergson



A paradigm is considered a self-evident truth that helps the efficiency with
which people think and act day to day.  It can be regarded as an obvious
fact by a profession, a political faction or an entire culture.  As the flat
earth paradigm proved, general acceptance and truth are not the same things.



Sometimes paradigms come full circle.  An ancient reverence for the power
and beauty of nature was thrown out when it was thought that industrial
society had conquered the natural world.  People are again coming to the
obvious conclusion that we are a part of nature, and risk destroying
ourselves by indulging in this conceit of the early industrialists.



Author Stephen Haines has assigned the following characteristics to
paradigms:  they are rules that regulators use to establish the definition
for success; data and facts tend to be ignored if they don't agree with a
paradigm; when there is a paradigm change "we all go back to zero"; a
successful past blinds one to the requirements for the future; and what is
impossible to do with one paradigm is relatively easy to do with another
paradigm.



Past illusions are easy to see once a general culture has undergone a
paradigm shift.  It is tempting for modern society to scoff at previous
generations who believed in a flat earth, the science of alchemy, the evil
of witchcraft and the unsinkability of the Titanic.  However, it will be
shown here that illusory knowledge is no less prevalent today.  Fact as
fiction continues to flourish, with a primary reason being that individuals
are still involved in a fiercely competitive milieu.



What makes paradigms so efficient and so hard to change is that the brain
itself physically optimizes the mental associations made in response to
basic beliefs.  New thread-like connections grow between neurons, while
others are strengthened, and yet others are weakened or discontinued.
Certain brain cells also shrink or grow.  Researcher Leslie Ungerleider
showed how the process is ongoing by expanding small sections of the brains
of volunteers who practiced picking out a tiny pattern against a confusing

background.  Repeated exposure to a valid idea can overcome an obsolete
paradigm.



rgds

Dan Parker

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Wilde" <kwilde@ca.inter.net>
To: <monetaryreform@cog.kent.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2002 2:29 PM
Subject: Re: MONETARY: Politics and Economics


> Dan, thanks for the additional light on your background and agenda. I
still
> have some questions about the modeling activity you have in mind.
>
> To my conjecture that
> >> ...you have in mind a primarily
> >> physical model, based possibly on energy sources and flows, but
building
> >in
> >> some mechanisms to illustrate the conversion of physical relationships
and
> >> magnitudes into monetary signals. With this model of "reality" you
would
> >> then be able to plug in various policy alternatives and generate their
> >> implications.
>
> you responded that
> >
> >"... my background...puts me more in the hands-on area than
> >academia or political maneuvering I think (although all of these
> >skills would of course be necessary for a successful team)."
>
> Furthermore, that your
> >"primary interest would be in constructing models, and strictly
> >speaking, it would be the population generating the implications in
> >a prototype.  Something along the lines of Jacksonville Quality
> >Indicators for Progress, where researchers hit the coffee shops
> >and so on, to ask people what they wanted to measure as wealth;
> >only more work on the other side, of how to generate the results
> >the population wanted. So the monetary signals would be tied
> >to the signals from what the people had expressed a desire for.
> >Some of this would be through a guaranteed income where there
> >dollars would vote -- but how to manage the 'commons' would
> >require something more of course.
>
> The emphasis this suggests on a kind of opinion or preference polling
seems
> to refute my previous conjecture that
> >> your concept of an economy is primarily a physical one, leaving human
> motivations >>essentially on the side.
>
> I am still scratching my head, however, for your next comments repeat the
> embrace of identifying and quantifying human values, but also reinforce
the
> exclusion of those aspects of human nature that inhibit progress toward a
> better world.
>
> >This list is mainly on technical matters, and I would be interested in
> >discussing the other in a separate forum, if I have time.
>
> This seems to say that work on progress indicators is "technical" (related
> to the model building you have in mind), but that the aspects of human
> nature that resist efforts to build, implement and respect the results of
> such a model are not themselves capturable in models. Does that come close
> to what you mean in the remainder of this statement?
>
> >The human
> >motivations are integral in such things as Genuine Progress Indicators,
> >Quality Indicators for Progress, Local Indicators For Excellence and
> >so on; but I think there is a lot more regarding, why won't the powers
> >that be let some of this work proceed. Some time ago I made a proposal
> >along these lines, and through the course of a side conversation on
quantum
> >physics got an offer to study this issue (without having any formal
training
> >yet),
> >but not even an answer on studying alternative economics.  At that point,
> >I focused on publicizing money reform.
> >
>
> Keith Wilde
> Ottawa
> kwilde@ca.inter.net
> 613 990-8125
>
>
>