The Critique of Dynamics and Economy have been interrupted by pressures brought on by inclement weather in Seattle, and academic requirements. It's still on hold. In the meantime,...
Someday, I'm going to have to actually read what René Descartes wrote, to see the rest of his reasoning past that quoted in the title of this post. But, being stimulated by such a line of reasoning at http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Most-Simple-Scientific-Theory-Reality.htm , here is a little on what I think ought to follow:
- I have contiguous and multimodal sensory stimulations over continuous time, unlike the simulations thereof in my dreams and other imaginations, these being relatively short, incomplete (in modes of "senses" involved), and discontinuous, therefore external reality exists, and objects other than me exist.
- Many of those sensory stimulations are in the form of communications of reasoning, therefore thinkers other than me exist. (That means you, honorable reader.)
- Many sensory stimulations betray a lack of reasoning of any kind, but merely mechanical processes, therefore not all external objects think.
OK. This is a start. I'll revisit this later.
My first impression upon reading the first paragraph of the forward to this article is that it is pseudo-science. Right off the bat, though the forward is titled "On the Subject of Riemannian Physical Economy", it drops the name of a seemingly obscure scientist, V.I. Vernadsky, purportedly the founder of a scientific specialization of which I've never heard (or had a long time ago), "Biogeochemistry", and cites the redefinition of a term, "dynamics", in a manner reminiscent of over-specialization. Granted, my ignorance of a subject doesn't make that subject pseudo-science, this introduction of what should be a difficult subject with references to something that appears unrelated, besides obscure, seems to be confusing in the same manner as much pseudo-science, at worst, or poor development of the idea, at best. With these references, unless I were already a very scholastic person, I'd have to either be baffled into believing that the author must be a genius and that I must simply accept his conclusion, or do a lot of work to understand and evaluate his argument.
Though having an initial concept of what might be studied in this science, yet skeptical of the specialization, I find that there is a journal "Biogeochemistry", which has as its topic Earth and Environmental Science, and is highly rated. Furthermore, the Wikipedia page on the topic credits Vladimir Vernadsky as the founder of this interdisciplinary study; on the other hand, certain language in this Wikipedia article incites my suspicion that it is actually contributed by some LaRoucheian. Moreover, "Vernadsky" is not a keyword in a historical article in the aforementioned journal, which article is not immediately accessible for non-keyed accreditation, though I'll track this down, along with two papers mentioned in the only application results in a Google search on "biogeochemistry history". I have much collection of materials and study ahead of me to be able to prepare a competent evaluation of the article by Lyndon L., Jr..
Though I am somewhat overloaded, and under-performing in my studies as an Engineering student, I have an urge to challenge ideas and systems of belief and thought, and, in turn, develop them. The system I have under consideration most today is LaRoucheism, expressed in the LaRouche Youth Movement , EIR and literature distributed on the street, often on campus sidewalks. I approach my consideration with some bias: a quick view of literature I've received over a few years resulted in an impression of severe egotism on the part of Lyndon LaRouche, Jr. and of a cult of the personality in others writing in periodicals published by the LaRouche PAC.
Moreover, while I've run across occasional ideas I've thought to be good, I haven't seen that they qualify Lyndon LaRouche to classed as a "major scientist, an outstanding economist"1. In addition, many ideas don't seem to be well developed or supported, often thrown incoherently with other ideas and claims, many times with a great deal of name-dropping or seemingly tangential references. Beyond these problems, I am often perturbed by how often Lyndon L. insults those who disagree with him.
In my current consideration, I'm going to examine a particular article "Dynamics and Economy"2, and either correct my bias, or confirm it.
After reading as much as I could stand at the time, being bothered both by what I felt was a pseudo-scientific mishmash right in the introduction of the article, and a flat-out wrong hypothesis3 of the origin of the heavy elements (heavier than Helium), I challenged a representative of the LaRouche Youth Movement, a young woman, about over-specification of "dynamic" to be a feature of "living systems", as opposed to mechanistic systems. Another, presumably more experienced, representative intervened, Adam by name, who backed up the article with claims of superiority of the work of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over that of Isaac Newton, and of sufficiency of the work of Johannes Kepler for laws of gravitation. He did not address my criticism of the model presented about the formation of the heavy elements, referring only to oxidation of Iron by biological processes as "transmutation".
Nevertheless, I am now charged with clearer and more direct understanding of the works of Johannes Kepler and of Gottfried W. Leibniz, having particular motivation to be able to demonstrate that Johannes K. did not, in fact, arrive at a universal gravitation statement, and that the calculus of Gottfried. W. L. did not create a calculus that is superior in dealing with living systems to that of Isaac N. In the meantime, criticism of "Dynamics and Economics" ensues, though I'll probably broaden my criticism to the entire periodical.
1. Lyndon LaRouche September 6 Webcast "The End of The Truman Era: Bring Back The Axioms of FDR", LaRouche PAC, 2006-09-06, Conference Dialogue with LaRouche pp.15-34, Greeting From Malaysia, Russia pp. 28-31, paragraph 2 (continued), pg. 29.
2. ibid, Appendix pp. 35-48, WHAT IS AN ECONOMIC 'SYSTEM' [sic] : Dynamics and Economy,
also available here.
3. ibid, Dialogue, Look for Global Solutions, para. 3, pg. 23.
I now, at long last, start to blog, no longer holding off in favor of a blog ran by code that I program.
Over the years, I've wished to record feelings and thoughts by way of publishing via the Internet, some of which I believe have some merit and deserve to see the light of day, to get outside of the regions of my brain in which they've been trapped.
I title this blog "Principal Uncertainty" in honor of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the title of which I hereby misuse as a characterization of my state of mind.
