Descartes, le malentendu

August 26, 2013 //
2

“Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum”
This was the original.
We have chosen to keep only ‘cogito ergo sum’ and be extremely proud of the fact humans are the only animals able to reason.
Really?
There is a small video that makes me wonder.…(You can enjoy all of it later, for the purpose of this post please watch from 28:01 to 32:00)
The way I see it, the monkey IS able to reason but is unable to refrain itself. When the situation allowed for ‘cold reasoning’ – when only numbers where involved, not real candy – he displayed the same kind of reasoning as the one we’d usually do.

By contrast, it is us, humans, who have the unique ability to think discursively – please see one of my previous posts about this – and hence the possibility to ask ourselves “what if?”
Maybe this is what Descartes wanted to convey to us, that it’s our capacity to ‘dubito’ that makes us humans, after all.

PS. Here you have the full transcription of that video.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Culture, Psychology

Efficient Markets Hypothesis? Some far-fetched implications.

August 24, 2013 //
0

“…the general concept of the efficient markets hypothesis is that financial markets are “informationally efficient…” ”

Stretching this concept we may conclude that the market is efficient (the prices reflect the ‘real’ value of the traded assets) because every economic agent acts rationally and that all the pertinent information is always available for everybody. This last sentence might sound far-fetched indeed but: “The third form, known as the strong form (or strong-form efficiency), states that asset prices adjust almost instantaneously not only to new public information but also to new private information.” (ibidem)

So, theoretically, we have perfectly rational economic agents and free flowing information.

In this case (no emotions involved, no shenanigans, brains in perfect working order) why on Earth do we still need the market?

One trained professional (OK, a board, a panel, something: the workload is too big for one individual) would be enough to settle prices based on available information and to adjust them as new information come in, right?

Are you flabbergasted? Well, you should! This is exactly how communists used to run the economies of the ‘popular democracies’ where they had risen to power. (It seems that in the 20 years since the fall of the European communism the concept of ‘popular democracy’ has evolved but nobody notices that this is a huge pleonasm – any real democracy is indeed ‘popular’. The communists used the concept to suggest that only the communist democracy – an oxymoron – was a true democracy; all other forms of democracies being deemed incomplete.

OK, so what’s the point of all this?
Well, some people advocate total deregulation of the economy/market.
As contemporary events have shown us economic trends in a mis-regulated environment give birth to ‘too big to fail’ entities. I’m afraid that a completely deregulated one will produce, in time, nothing but even bigger conglomerates.

So what should we do? Tighten the existing regulation?
NO!!!
We should adopt a much simpler set of rules based on on a staunch philosophy: maintaining the real freedom of the market instead of allowing the ‘significant’ agents to bend the rules in their favor.

Regulation should just state what is unacceptable and not give recommendations, directives, indications, etc.

Tags , , ,
Categories Economy, Psychology

“Is ‘Capitalistic ethics’ an oxymoron?”

August 23, 2013 //
1

It should be a must and not at all an oxymoron.
Morals were a time sanctioned method of getting along with the others which was based on religious precepts.
In time people understood the benefits of cooperation versus thuggery and thus the need for the religious backup disappeared. Ethics were born.
Nowadays some try to convince us that life is a zero sum game (it isn’t) and that ‘ethics are for the faint hearted’.
Not true. This conviction arises from falsely understanding the Darwin’s natural selection as the ‘survival of the fittest’!
Ernst Myer demonstrates clearly that this is absolutely wrong: ‘what is “the fittest” ?’ ‘You can be ‘fittest’ only by taking into account one or more parameters but those parameters might never describe completely a situation. Moreover ‘situations’ have a knack for changing so becoming the ‘fittest’ is a useless performance. In NNT’s terms is a (futile) attempt at robustness. Mayr says that in reality natural selection is about the demise of the unable to adapt. (Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is).
Now is anybody naive enough to believe that one can adapt to new circumstances solely by oneself, without any outside help? And what help can one expect while finding oneself alone in a corner after a long enough spell of behaving unethically?

 

PS Thanks Vince Pomal for the very interesting question!

Tags , , ,
Categories Culture, Economy, politics, Psychology

Two different (re)active attitudes.

August 23, 2013 //
3

The animate kingdom usually REacts to stimuli/situations. If hungry a preset sequence (genetically acquired or previously learned) is set in motion without much internal deliberation. The same goes for when evasive actions are needed. This kind of reactions are usually called ‘reflexes’ or ‘acquired reflexes’.
Humans use them too. We pull our hands when we touch a hot object and we use our arm to protect our head against an incoming stick even though we know this is going to hurt. And no, this is not a rational decision. It is made too quickly for the brain to have had time to reason. If that was the case the brain would have ordered the entire body to move.
I like to use a slightly different name for this kind of interactions: ‘integrative-reflex responses’. Integrative because all available data are used, simultaneously, and reflex because they not based on reason but on a pre-existing pattern.
But humans are able to use yet another method. We reference past experiences, try to establish how relevant they are for the present situation and then adapt the solution we used then to the current problem. Sometimes we confront the possible answer with a filter, usually of a moral, legal or ‘traditional’ nature.
For me this kind of reactions is ‘rational -discursive’: ‘rational’ because it implies rational choice and ‘discursive’ because it is sequenced in time. Moreover both ‘reasoning’ and ‘sequencing’ are made using language – most of us think and remember by speaking to ourselves, right?
Here you have a practical example of these two different attitudes in action: humans stick to what they have already learned because nothing really prods them to change anything to the time proven strategy while the monkey jumps directly to the conclusion once the relevant information becomes available.
The (surprising?) conclusion reached by Victoria Horner: “we are better of because of this!”
Also, our ability to build a discourse about something gives us the ability to make mental projections – to ACT, that is.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Psychology

Dorin Cioaba: genial, ‘folosit’ sau amandoua la un loc?

August 21, 2013 //
0

Toata chestia asta cu Florin Cioaba (sa-i fie tarina usoara) are si o componenta care poate fi caracterizata ca fiind o ‘campanie de crestere a notorietatii’ – orice eveniment de genul asta este folosit la maxim de orice ‘casa regala’ care vrea sa-si pastreze/consolideze/extinda influenta, fie ea autentica sau autoproclamata.
Ca la aceasta campanie isi aduc ‘contributia’ tembeliziunile… e firesc. Cine nu alearga dupa rating?
Eu ma intreb totusi: Dorin Cioaba are geniu, si-a angajat el un consultant sau intreaga situatie este folosita de cu totul si cu totul altcineva?

Tags ,
Categories Culture, politics, Psychology

Ironic or what?

August 21, 2013 //
0

David Miranda’s detention!

Am I the only one noticing the irony of all this?

“They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn’t co-operate,”

Miranda?!?

“The U.K. Terrorism Act of 2000 under which he was waylaid allows authorities to question individuals passing through British airports for up to nine hours and to confiscate their property for up to seven days, without any evidence or reasonable suspicion that they have done anything wrong.”

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

Oh, I forgot. He is not an American citizen and this didn’t happen in the US. Actually it didn’t even happen in Great Britain proper either: “What you instead have is a kind of vacuum that is not quite Britain, not quite not Britain, in which this Act enables people to interrogate people for up to nine hours and seize all their belongings with no checks and balances.”

This is indeed the definition of artificial Limbo!

Tags
Categories politics

Natural human rights?!?

August 20, 2013 //
0

Here is a “Chronology of the History of the Rights of Man”.

Nothing natural here. Either you are a believer and then the ‘Rights of Man’ derive from “God created man in his own image” (KJV, 1:27, probably the most important contribution Christianity made to the welfare of the humankind) or you don’t and then you are wise enough as to understand that the communities/nations that applied this concept have fared better in times past and have a lot better chance of surviving whatever the future will throw at them than the rest of them.

Rivers of ink may be used to discuss the matter but the facts are simple. The entire history of man is the history of the individual becoming more and more autonomous by building stronger and stronger ties with the rest of the society. This may sound paradoxically but it isn’t as I’ll try to convince you in the coming days.

If you don’t have enough patience you may read ‘Starship Troopers’ by Robert Heinlein for a more convoluted version of the same argument.

Tags , ,
Categories Culture, Psychology

“The Story of Your Enslavement”

August 19, 2013 //
1

Fright of death enables ‘human farming’.

Tags
Categories Psychology

Over education? I don’t think so.

August 19, 2013 //
0

Somehow I disagree with the notion of ‘over-education’… warped-education maybe?
My take is that nowadays the formal education system errs in two directions: induces false hopes coupled with an ineffective attitude: “Carefully toe the line and everything will come out fine.”
In a way this is true, only for two different groups of people: those who toe the line are not the same as those for whom everything comes out fine.
And this also valid for what is happening in the advertising business.

Tags , ,
Categories Culture, Economy, Psychology

Peter Principle

August 15, 2013 //
0

“[i]n time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties”

The explanation for Peter’s Principle might be NNT‘s concept of fragility: exaggerated reliance on things that worked in the past eventually lead to fragility: the higher management promote individuals according to their PAST performance and those very individuals became more and more self sufficient as they climb up the ladder.
So ‘higher management’ neglect to check if the individual actually has the right qualifications to fulfill his new tasks and the individual neglects to keep on learning new skills as he gets more and more promotions.

Tags , , ,
Categories Culture, Psychology
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »