Yes.
So this is the ontological question: is supposed apparently "objective" reality really real?
I come at this as someone who in the past questioned this. I had my period of post-modernist questioning of objective reality. This culminated in a paper, which I presented as a major address to receive a major recognition at my university, "Belief: Its role in economic theory and action," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1993.
I shall stand by the vast majority of things I said in that paper, now under criticism on various fronts, but not all. I shall note, without bothering to reply specifically to any of those comments here, that indeed I there are things in this paper I now disagree with. This was the height of my agreement with the pomo view of the universe. But I had moved on from the less defensible parts of that paper well before the general pomo exercise was to be revealed to be a pile of crap.in the Sokal expoese in 1996.
I have just finished reading main portions of the latest book by my friend, Lee Smolin, "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum," which is to be a Christmas present to a family member, "pretesting" of gifts we call it.
Lee is a friend of mine, and the big cheese at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, ON, CA. This is the place where the critics of string theory hang out, and Lee is their leader. I have spoken there, and I have lots of respect for this place and specifically many people thre beyond Lee Smolin, their general protector and supporter.
So, Lee is the leader of those who question the String theory explanation of ultimate reality. This now puts Lee and his associates at the PMI as "heterodox," as economists would say, given that there is no longer a clear disproof of the hypothesis.
Anyway, Smolin recognizes that this debate over the nature reality is important for current policy discussions. While he recognizes varieties of "anti-realists," the most important view going back through Wheeler and Bohr and Schrodinger is his cat problem: until somebody looks at it we do not know if it is alive or dead. But whether or not we view it; in the end it is one or the other. There really is an objective reality that has been proceeding long before we showed up to have ideas about it. At the bottom line, I agree with him, even as I continue to support most of what in my 93 paper.
I shall note, now especially as I have identified or economists, especially fans of this blog, the Perimeter Institute is the hangout of what supposedly does not exist, "heterodox physics theorists." Now I, as an old epistemologist, recognize that supposedly physics is "more real" than economics, with all its humans behaving weirdly and more. But, as Smolin notes, quantum mechanics is itself from Neils Bohr on down through Heisenberg and many others associated with an "anti-realist" view: reality is ultimately an interaction between humans and what they perceive: the cat is dead or alive only when some observer sees the cat. For Smolin, and according to him and the ultimate realist Eintein, the cat in the end is alive or dead. More fundamentally, on a point I take seriously. reality was around for billions of years before we showed up. Does somehow its reality depend on us on observing it?
Bottom line is that I agree with Lee that despite all the oddities of quantum mechanics in the end there really is an objective reality.
So now let us bring this to the current ongoing debates in political economy an admittedly less well-founded "science." So Smolin does make some observations on current discussions, where I completely agree with him. So, on climate change, yes, science is pretty clear: global warming is happening. What we do about is another matter. But global warming is a real reality actually happening.
Also, human beings got here through evolution. That is also an objective fact supported by virtually all of the available evidence, despite some odd details in evolutionary history. We really need to defend science against its attackers in the public arena.
Barkley Rosser
Really excellent short essay.
ReplyDeletePhilip K. Dick, who wrote phantasmagorical science fiction novels, once said: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." He was reprising Samuel Johnson's famous kick, "I refute it thus."
ReplyDeleteI think quantum mechanics gets overused in reality metaphors. Reality at the quantum scale is just very different from what we are used to at our much larger scale. It's just as real. It's just different. Physics runs into this kind of thing a lot. At a certain scale, there is nothing at all like our ordinary scale understanding of temperature.
As for string theory, it isn't about reality, it's about sterility. After a few decades of searching under one street lamp, it's time to move down the block or get a flashlight.
"As for {strike}string theory{/strike} new classical/new Keynesian macroeconomics, it isn't about reality, it's about sterility. After a few decades of searching under one street lamp, it's time to move down the block or get a flashlight."
ReplyDeleteFTFY
(strike and del tags not accepted; thus the italics and fake strike tag)
There's real as in rocks (or quanta of energy) and there's real as in money or the good life. As Dumbledore said, just because it's in your head does not mean it isn't real. Just a different kind of real. The rock does not go away if you stop believing in it; the money does.
ReplyDeletePost-modernism was a set of ideas which were enormously fruitful when applied to literature (and much of the humanities) absolutely inapplicable outside of that domain.
We should defend science, and the critical method generally, but we also need to be clear about what we are defending. A photon can look after itself, the meaning of a social fiction cannot.
There is objective reality -- but not for us.
ReplyDeletePeter T.,
ReplyDeleteInterestingly in the long preface to this book, Smolin at a crucial point uses the example of a rock for something that is real, but it not necessarily at all what we think it is. A rock seems so solid, and is to us, but from a more fundamental perspective it is mostly empty space, as in that the atoms making it up rather resemble miniature solar systems, with the nucleus being the sun and the electsons being the planets. That opens the door to talking about "what is an electron?" which gets right at the quantum mechanics question, as indeed apparently explaining the structure of atoms is widely considered to be one of the greater successes of textbook quantum mechanics..
The objective reality of economics
ReplyDeleteComment on Barkley Rosser on ‘Is There An Objective Reality?’
As always, before he comes to the point, Barkley Rosser has to inflate his ego with name-dropping: “Lee [Smolin] is a friend of mine, and the big cheese at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, ON, CA. This is the place where the critics of string theory hang out, and Lee is their leader. … So, Lee is the leader of those who question the String theory explanation of ultimate reality. … Anyway, Smolin recognizes that this debate over the nature reality is important for current policy discussions.”
OK, but what about objective reality? Here it is: “More fundamentally, on a point I take seriously. reality was around for billions of years before we showed up. Does somehow its reality depend on us on observing it? Bottom line is that I agree with Lee that despite all the oddities of quantum mechanics in the end there really is an objective reality. So now let us bring this to the current ongoing debates in political economy an admittedly less well-founded ‘science’.”
First of all, microfounded economics deals with middle-sized objects of production/trade/consumption and, by logical consequence, quantum mechanics is absolutely irrelevant. Not even classical physics is dealt with in economics: “Political Economy, therefore, presupposes all the physical sciences; it takes for granted all such of the truths of those sciences as are concerned in the production of the objects demanded by the wants of mankind; or at least it takes for granted that the physical part of the process takes place somehow.” (J. S. Mill)
So, economics leaves the physical aspect of reality to Physics and the psychological/sociological aspect to Psychology/Sociology. Economics deals with the economic system and tries to figure out the systemic laws. The de-hyped reality is that economics has NOT been successful at its proper task. The major approaches — Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT — are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent and all got the foundational economic concept profit wrong. Economics is a failed science from Adam Smith/Karl Marx onward to Barkley Rosser.
The contribution of economists to science is exactly zero. How could this happen? Well, there is political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.
Theoretical economics is a scientific failure. Because of this, economics has nothing to offer in the way of scientifically well-founded advice: “In order to tell the politicians and practitioners something about causes and best means, the economist needs the true theory or else he has not much more to offer than educated common sense or his personal opinion.” (Stigum)
The fact is that economists do not have the true theory and that, by consequence, economic policy guidance NEVER had sound scientific foundations.#1
Economists have NO grasp of economic reality. The outstanding characteristic of the representative economist is utter scientific incompetence. Economists are even too stupid for the elementary algebra that underlies macroeconomics.#2
See part 2
Part 2
ReplyDeleteThe economist’s lack of scientific capacity is confirmed with Barkley Rosser’s summary: “So, on climate change, yes, science is pretty clear: global warming is happening. What we do about is another matter. But global warming is a real reality actually happening. Also, human beings got here through evolution. That is also an objective fact supported by virtually all of the available evidence, despite some odd details in evolutionary history. We really need to defend science against its attackers in the public arena.”
First of all, science has to be defended against the fake scientists and real political agenda pushers from the economics departments who award themselves the Oligarchy-sponsored “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.#3
In order to protect itself from fraudsters, economists have to be expelled from the scientific community.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Economics ― the science that never was
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/12/economics-science-that-never-was.html
#2 Get it econ suckers: microfoundations = false, macrofoundations = true
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/12/get-it-econ-suckers-microfoundations.html
#3 Cross-references Political Economics/Stupidity/Corruption
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2015/11/political-economics-cross-references.html