 |
This is a new JHT peer review stage article, in the re-formatting and or re-construction stage of development, about which: comments , suggestions, and or criticism are welcome, which can be submitted via: (a) the threads below, (b) comments added into the "this" wiki page, via the EasyEdit button, (c) attachment added to this page, via EasyEdit tools, (d) review posted externally, e.g. in beta wiki , WordPress, Blogger, your own website, etc., or (e) email comments sent to JHT editor Libb Thims directly via libbthims@gmail.com, which will be made public. |
In the aftermath of the 2012 University of California, Berkeley 120-day research misconduct investigation into the accusation of ‘idea plagiarism’ in the nonreductive physical materialism teleology theories of UC Berkeley anthropology professor Terrence Deacon, a parallel reading of the respective nonreductive physical materialism teleology theories of plagiarism accuser Cuban-born American philosopher Alicia Juarrero (Dynamics in Action, 1999) and Terrence Deacon (Incomplete Nature, 2011) was done in effort to ascertain any resemblance, novelty, priority, or worth of each. A report of these findings his presented here and along the way a critique and analysis of physical teleology theory in general is given.
Author| Reviews | Review board | Other |
Terrence Deacon | 22 May 2013 | 12:32 AM EDT | Email| Juarrero-Deacon theory | ||
 | = |  |
| A synopsis of Canadian philosopher Evan Thompson's 2011 Nature review of Deacon's book, wherein he summarizes that Deacon's main argument is that "absences", like meaning, desire, longing, morning, etc., arise or emerge similar to how molecules are "constrained" (constraints) to certain paths (Benard cells) when heated, or something along these lines. [2] | ||
- I am an atheist with no interest in reinserting classical teleology back onto the physical sciences,
- I do not claim or believe that life or mind violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics,
- I am emphatically NOT attempting to resurrect Aristotle,
- I do not believe that the idea of top-down causality makes sense,
- I am not an anti-reductionist,
- I am not a humanist or social scientist
- I don't think that current systems theory, complexity theory, dissipative systems theory, the autopoiesis metaphor, etc., adequately explain the special thermodynamic organization of living organisms
- my attempt "teleodynamics" IS consistent with the 2nd law of thermodynamics (no magic);
- I argue that it is just a special case of thermodynamics not some new physics
- teleodynamics is a testable hypothesis about molecular chemistry (not some metaphysical claim) and I provide sufficient details to empirically test it and prove me right or wrong (the autogen model system),
- I am particularly surprised that given your interest in information theory that you said nothing about my arguments about information or evolution (where I assumed you might come up with cogent critiques).
Libb Thims | 22 May 2013 | 2:21 AM EDT | Post
FYI, I also contacted Juarrero's four cohorts: Lissack, Rubino, McGinn, and Thompson, to give peer review. Hopefully they will have something interesting to say?
Also, to clarify, I read your book in detail, cover to cover, and this reading is inclusive of my standard dissection of books method of pencil noting commenting, boxing in of certain text, stars, checks, boxes, dates, question marks, "what" comments, one or two occasional highlights for exceptional sentences (which in your case amounted to one, namely your statement that Seth Lloyd writes in a "way of telling the story" that "misrepresents the history", which is strikingly true, hence I highlighted it), circles around certain foot notes, etc., etc., etc., which in your case amounted to a total of 1,340 pencil dissection incidences, all the way through your Glossary, Notes, References, Index, up through your second to last page (#601), where I box in all your usages of the term "vitalism", one notation example of which I scanned and will post on the above wiki review page [shown below], namely notation note #1250 your date typo of the Schneider and Kay reference, which you incorrectly put as 1997 (pg. 561), whereas it should correctly be 1994:
I then let the book sit for some time, read two other books [Karl Pearson's 1892 The Grammar of Science and Francis Crick's 1996 Of Molecules and Men], as discussed, then came back to it, went through all 1,340 notation and commentary notes AGAIN and wrote this article with my "remarkably poisoned pen" as you call it.
Again, I will respond more later in [this] wiki page.Libb Thims | 22 May 2013 | 3:37 AM EDT | Post
Response: Re: "angry at the world for not taking his theories seriously", to quickly comment on this statement, as there is some truth to it, in respect to anger, but to clarify it's for the most part not "at the world" and certainly not about taking "my theories seriously", as you seem to think, everything I write has been said or done before, e.g. you comment "unlike your human molecule theory", correctly: human molecular hypothesis comes from French philosopher Jean Sales (The Philosophy of Nature: Treatise on Human Moral Nature, 1770), who was put in prison for this "theory" because it was against religion, there was but one who came to his defense, namely the great and witty Voltaire, who gave the modern day equivalent of $100,000 dollars towards his release. There have been over 120+ HMS pioneers who, mostly independently, arrived at the same view, which you ascribe as "my human molecule theory". See: human molecule (banned) for a history of opposition and resistance to this notion, the classic case being French physical chemistry philosopher Pierre Teilhard being excommunicated from the church for this view. I would sense that my anger is no different that Newton's anger.
Moreover, as I have said before to many people, a view that I came to discern, in my pre 2007 years, after discovering Goethe nd that everything that I am attempting has been done before by him, two hundred years ago (and that he faced nothing but unkind words [see: Elective Affinities (enemies)] for his remaining 23 years of existence, following the 1809 completion of his tripartite metamorphology theory), I don't expect what I am saying to be taken seriously until the year 3,000, at which point I assume it will be an accepted common fact that people are molecules whose behaviors are governed by chemical thermodynamics. The following two quotes come to mind here at this point:
“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”— Goethe
“I must say, I started watching your videos— Ben (2011), comment on Human Chemistry 101 YouTube channel
Everything that Goethe wrote, in respect to an explanation of what you call "intrinsically incomplete curious attributes", namely: "longing, desire, passion, appetite, mourning, loss, aspiration" (pg. 3 of your book), was proved correct following the publication of German physicist Hermann Helmholtz' 1882 "On the Thermodynamics of Chemical Processes", at which point the affinity-free energy equation was established and at which point the thermodynamic theory of affinity was established as the bedrock of modern physical science, after which it remains but a task for us to explain what Goethe was talking about in his explanations of longing, desire, passion, appetite, mourning, loss, aspiration, etc., in terms of "affinities" and human chemical reaction theory, albeit now one must do so in terms of the components of free energy G, internal energy U, pressure volume work PV, transformation content TS energy. If you don't believe me, you can consult American physical chemist and former college president Thomas Wallace, who explained it as follows in 2009:“The thermodynamic parameter free energy:And if you don't believe Wallace, then you can consult the 40+ human free energy theory pioneers. I openly admit that I was ignorant of all of this prior to say about 2001, and especially after 2007, following my discovery of Goethe, and I will gladly and willingly call anyone ignorant (including you) who is not up-to-date on all of this.
represents the fundamental driving force in nature and determines whether physical and chemical processes conducted by nature and society will take place [and] the civilization development model [can be] represented by the following equation:
where P is the primitive phase, F the feudal phase, S the state phase, I the imperial phase,meaning dynamic equilibrium, and → meaning complete conversion to products.”
What you call "ad hominem" I call a search for the truth and a quest to come closer to the secret principle of the universe that Bacon, Newton, and Goethe all searched for.
Libb Thims | 23 May 2013 | 9:59 AM EDT | PostDynamics in Action (1999) & Incomplete Nature (2011) = Final cause (Aristotle) + Far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics (Prigogine)
“There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.”— Aristotle (c.320BC), Publication
“To adopt this novel standard for defining plagiarism would create some "interesting" situations. Take, for example, the intellectual arena of human thermodynamics, a topic that both Deacon and Juarrero address in their respective books. Hmolpedia: An Encyclopedia of Human Thermodynamics, Human Chemistry and Human Physics maintains a webpage, "HT pioneers," which lists scientists and writers who over the years have contributed theory and logic to the understanding of the thermodynamics of human existence. At the moment the page lists some 505 individuals. How many of these authors would Deacon and Juarrero have to cite to avoid a charge of plagiarism under Lissack's novel definition? Note that this list does not include either Juarrero or Deacon, both of whom have written on the thermodynamics of human existence. So even the encyclopedic Encyclopedia of Human Thermodynamics may not meet Lissack's standards of complete citation.”
argues that we need to begin to incorporate energy and entropy thinking into economics. No doubt, Kummel having now taught a course, since 2005, on “Economics and Thermodynamics”, at University of Wurzburg, I will be less "angry" when I read his book, being that it will be closer to reality as compared to your book—and when I say “reality” I am referring specifically to American UC Berkeley chemical thermodynamicist Frederick Rossini’s 1971 Priestley Medal address “Chemical Thermodynamics in the Real World”, which in 2006 launched the ongoing Rossini debate.
Left: Kummel's 2011 The Second Law of Economics, the result the product of lecture notes for a course he taught for several years on economics and thermodynamics. Right: Kummel giving a 2012 talk on the subject matter of his book.
Evan Thompson| 22 May 2013 | Email
Also, from now having a read of your review [2], and image of it posted above, I notice that both you and Juarrero refer to heated water molecules forming Bernard cells. As far as I am aware, water does not have enough viscosity to form such shapes, only viscous things such as silicon oil and whale oil, in a dish, when heated will make the hexagonal-shaped cells. And also, to correct Juarrero, if she is following along [?], bifurcations are not phase transitions (pg. 120 of DIA), the latter of which are processes such as a liquid to vapor transition.
To note, a reading of your 2011 review, especially this part:“Deacon stumbles on two crucial junctures—his explanations for the emergence of meaning and for the emergence of consciousness. The problem of meaning is the problem of how it is possible for certain physical phenomena, such as brain states, to have content or be ‘about’ something beyond themselves. Deacon’s answer is not easy to decipher. Roughly, he seems to be saying that certain states of self-generating system acquire content when they correlate reliably with features of the environment that are useful to that system. For example a system that needs molecules form the environment in order to reproduce ‘interprets; the presence of those molecules as meaning that the environment is conductive to reproduce.”
convinced me into ordering your book just now. Hopefully, I will find more of this kind of discussion therein?
Colin McGinn | 22 May 2013 | Email
Terrence Deacon | 22 May 2013 | 12:11 PM EDT | EmailQ1. Is the molecular model system that I call autogenesis thermodynamically and chemically realizable? If not why not?
Q2. If so, are the properties I ascribe to it likely to be demonstrated? If not why not?
- that MEPP is violated by this system and therefore cannot adequately account for living thermodynamics (and is probably wrong in general)
- that autogenesis produces an entropy ratcheting effect, thus preserving (and reconstituting) the attractor constraints it generates
- that it produces a higher-order synergy constraint that is substrate transferrable,
- that this creates the capacity to channel the specific form of physical work (in this system the source of free energy must be externally available, e.g. in the breakable chemical bonds of substrate molecules) that can generate the conditions that perpetuate this same capacity
- that these properties are required to explain living thermodynamics and functional information (not merely Shannon/Kolmogoroff information)
Response: I’m low on time today, so to quickly comment:
● Your “autogenesis” is a perpetual motion theory, that violates perpetual motion of the first kind, perpetual motion of the second kind, and perpetual motion of the living kind. I’m guessing you got the “auto-” part from Stuart Kauffman, and his autocatalytic closure theory, whose review I will read and post shortly.
● This comment: “that MEPP is violated by this system” I don’t fully see what you mean?
● This term usage “living thermodynamics” (or life thermodynamics), particularly when applied to human mental interactions, as clarified by Swedish physical chemist Sture Nordholm, in his noted 1997 article “In Defense of Thermodynamics: an Animate Analogy”, is something that should correctly be called “animate thermodynamics”, and if you want to further distinguish between an “animate” thing such as a heat driven Hero steam engine, Hero automaton, or robot, then you would want to signify that it is CHNOPS-based animate thermodynamics that you are discussing. That you ascribe the term “living” to certain types of animation and “non-living” to others is your shortsightedness.
● In this comment “constraint that is substrate transferrable”, can you explain this in simple English, per each term: transferrable, substrate, constraint. You and Juarrero both seem to think that the container of the piston and cylinder is a “constraint” to the molecules inside of it, in the same way that a societal boundary is a “constraint” to humans. Is this correct?
● This statement: “source of free energy must be externally available” is a huge misconception in science—the biggest blunder of which is Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s material entropy theory extrapolation of this. Free energy is something, in human mental terms, is something that comes from the changes in bonds “between” people (see: human chemical bond and bond energy), in same way that free energies result from the reactions between molecules, as quantified on free energy tables. What comes externally to us is “heat” from the sun.
● Re: your last point: talking about or even associating oneself with Shannon entropy is like associating one’s theory with either, phlogiston, Peter Tait’s knot theory of the atom (see: atomic theory), or even possibly string theory, though the hat may be still out on this, they are all a waste time. We each only have so many years of moving existence on this planet as a bound state reactive molecule, and in my view there are “so many theories, so little time”. Hence, I prefer not to waste my time on paths with no fruit.
● Re: “convince me that you really read my book” did you not read my response above [22 May 2013 | 2:21 AM EDT]? Not only did I read your book, cover-to-cover, in detail, but I also wrote commentary in your book with my pencil a total of 1,350 times. Here is another scan, showing "personal note" comments (namely: "retarded slop"), again these are personal note comments, I try to refrain from such derisive language in articles and public communication, written in early February 2013, to further satisfy your doubt:
Chemical perpetual motion Mechanical perpetual motion
↔Left: Terrence Deacon's 2011 description of chemical perpetual motion, wherein he argues that life started from what he terms an "autogen" that started from "circles of reactions" that "self-generated" 3.85 billion years ago. Right: an overbalanced wheel perpetual motion device, according to which it was reasoned that the metal balls on the right side would turn the wheel because of the longer lever arm, hence achieving perpetual motion.
So, again, please stop accusing me of skipping chapters or not reading. I sometimes read upwards of three books per day and my home library is well over 1,300 books, which is more than Thomas Young (1000 book library) but less than Goethe (5,000 book library).Response: [2nd] Re: "That you sent this to the people you mention suggests to me that your interests are journalistic rather than scientific", this is one of the stupidest things you've said. I contact people because I what to get this subject out of the closet and to get everybody's cards on the table so we can play the game.
Comment: One last comment, before I close up for the day, specifically regarding my “poisonous pen”. What comes to mind here is American chemical engineer Linus Pauling and his 1987 chapter contribution to Schrodinger: Centenary Celebration of a Polymath, and how he ripped apart Schrodinger’s famous What is Life? booklet. Specifically, while everyone else was and has been patting Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961) on the back and extolling upon his greatness, Pauling was the only one to call him out:“When I first read this book, over 40 years ago, I was disappointed. It was, and still is, my opinion that Schrodinger made no contribution to our understanding of life. Several physicists and biologists with whom I have discussed this question have disagreed with me. When I asked what the contribution made by Schrodinger to our understanding of life is, each answered essentially by saying that Schrodinger showed that life is negative entropy, that living organisms utilize entropy in a way different from non-living matter.Pauling here, as we see, has intellectual balls! I would guess that 99 out of 100 scientists have the view in their head that Schrodinger, in his 1943 lecture turned book, solved the what is life in terms of physics and chemistry puzzle. Deacon, you for instance, being well grouped as one of these 99, state the following about Schrodinger (pg. 267):
I have not had the opportunity to discuss this matter with a physical chemist, a person with a good understanding of the great work by J. Willard Gibbs on chemical thermodynamics. I am sure that he or she would agree with me.
Schrodinger’s discussion of thermodynamics is vague and superficial to an extent that should not be tolerated even in a popular lecture. In the discussion of thermodynamic quantities it is important to define the system. When he is writing about a change in entropy of the system, Schrodinger never even defines the system. Sometimes he seems to consider that the system is a living organism with no interaction whatever with the environment; and sometimes it is a living organism in thermal equilibrium with the environment; and sometimes it is the living organism plus the environment, that is the universe as a whole.”“A focus of on the far-from-equilibrium dynamics of living systems was highlighted by Erwin Schrodinger’s effort to bring attention to their unusual thermodynamic tendencies.”
This his historical anachronism, just as you deride Seth Lloyd of doing in respect to statistical mechanics and information theory. Far-from-equilibrium dynamics, as you call it was not yet invented until the 1950s, 60s, and for the most part becoming popular in the 70s, some thirty years after Schrodinger’s What is Life lecture. Also you state (281):“Schrodinger’s answer to the question was that living chemistry must somehow be continuously performing work to stave off the pressures of thermodynamic decay, and to do this it needs to feed off of sources of free energy available in the outside world that he enigmatically called ‘negentropy’, or sources of order”.
This, again, is HUGE misrepresentation. Schrodinger said organisms must "feed of negative entropy", but that was about it. He never said “organisms must continuously perform work to stave off thermodynamic decay. This is your particular reading of his work. Schrodinger eventually got attacked for all of this (just like I am attacking your theory), after which he was forced to pen his famous “Note to Chapter 6” retraction, saying he should have turned the discussion to free energy (or correctly to human free energy theory, in modern 21st century terms).
Again you say that you ran your theory through a number of physical chemists, but did you, as Pauling says, “discuss this matter with a physical chemist, a person with a good understanding of the great work by J. Willard Gibbs on chemical thermodynamics”? There are very few of these in this world, so I’m sure you didn’t. In fact very few people have the ability to read Gibbs' two graphical thermodynamics of fluids articles and followup On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances cover to cover (see commentary on this here). I still have not completed the task myself.
So, again, a poisonous pen, like that of Pauling, is healthy for everyone and as I like to say “we learn the best from that which wounds us the deepest.” On the flip side, my aim is to found America’s first two cultures department, like John Q. Stewart did at Princeton (1948-1955) with Percy Bridgman, and two other sociologists, which involves two cultures bridge building, so please try to thicken your skin, and not take things personally.
Stuart Kauffman | 22 May 2013 | 12:19 PM EDT | Email. Stu.Response: Thanks for the note. Hopefully, you will be back in spirits soon. Review for this article will close on or prior to the 4th week of June, as I will be leaving for Romania, to attend their econophysics workshop (poster).
FYI, a person cannot "die" any more than can any other animate molecule "die" (see: defunct theory of life & life terminology upgrades). Also, to give you some consolation, sometimes great things can come following the analysis (death) of a person. The example that comes to mind, for me, being Goethe's 3 Oct 1809 writing of his self defined greatest work Elective Affinities, or "best book" as he called it, following the analysis (death) of his closest intellectual friend Friedrich Schiller on 9 May 1805, after which he said he was "set free" (see: Goethe timeline).
Terrence Deacon | 23 May 2013 | Email
Response: Whatever the case, I've got your theory disproved here: chemical teleology; and have you listed [here] as someone, similar to American historian John Diggins and his 1995 "crank" labeling of Henry Adams, not able to see the forest among the trees.
Good day to you.
Stephen Ternyik | 2 Jun 2013 | 10:07 AM EDT | Postopines that human life is a painful chain of short-term mistakes & long-term-errors, giving even parameters for 'pain reduction' (=learning to knowledge). Physical teleology can not provide empirical evidence for a supreme cause of the physical world by pure reasoning or experimental design, i.e. scientists seek formal or ideal unity for aesthetic reasons and intellectual reputation. Concerning the cultivation of new & good ideas (=learning), academia (=knowledge) still lacks efficient mechanisms (=tolerance?). Ethical teleology can be supported by physical teleology, thus promoting and establishing practical theological reasoning (e.g. atheism, agnosticism). The hidden curriculum of 'intellectual property' is directed against open learning & knowledge; property is economically physical possession of and in this world.
The following noted quote
“Perhaps they need a good talking to, if you don't mind my saying so. Perhaps a bit more. My girls, sir, they didn't care for the Overlook at first. One of them actually stole a pack of matches, and tried to burn it down. But I "corrected" them sir. And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I "corrected" her.” (Delbert Grady
Sometimes well-intentioned scholars become a bit too smug in their positive feedback embedded old boys review networks, and, lacking any hard, “give it to me straight”, feedback, digress into layered awry arguments greatly in need of "correction".
Re: “implicit theological 'explosives' by entering into 'intellectual property'”, yes, on the latter point this was one of the things that irritated me the most, namely a legal action pressured near-lawsuit investigation into claims of “intellectual property rights” on science, and on the former point, i.e. theological explosives, there is something these three respective authors are digging around at, in the distant vicinity of a minefield (the world religions as a whole), but again they are near but off target.
The REAL “radical new explanation of how life and consciousness emerged from physics and chemistry” [tagline to Deacon’s 624-page book], was long ago done by Goethe, not Deacon, Juarrero, nor Aristotle (thought Goethe absorbed Aristotle), the implicit religion-exploding effect of which was clearly stated in by Victoria Woodhull in her 1871 review:“[This] work of the greatest genius of Germany [Goethe], the first who promulgated the thought that there is a chemistry of the mind, and that "elective affinities" [A = –ΔG] are as powerful and legitimate in the realm of human sentiment as in the realm of matter. [This] scientific truth cannot be appreciated by the world too soon, nor its immense sweep of consequences be too clearly foreseen and provided for. It will affect the whole scope of morals and social order, whether we accept it in our theories or not, and the less hurtfully and the more beneficently, in proportion as we thoroughly study and understand the subject.
A great revolutionary doctrine pervades the whole. The American public is entitled to know what this great leader of modern thought, one of the founders of comparative anatomy, has thought on the more recondite subject of the chemistry of mind. In none of his works is that question so effectively answered as in Elective Affinities. [Though] it may be thought not radical and outspoken enough [it] prepares the mind for the still more radical change which the next few years [centuries] will inevitably produce.”
This quote, in particular the "American public is entitled to know" statement, greatly captures the "anger" which Deacon, above (22 May), attributes me with. It deboggles my mind, every day, how someone, such as my self, can go through the entire standard American educational process (age 6-18), then through the supposed hardest and most science encompassing degree one can obtain (chemical engineering) (age 19-22), at one of the world's leading engineering schools (University of Michigan, top 13A = –ΔG
and that Goethe, over two hundred years ago, worked out the "micro" sociological aspects (A) of this, that Gibbs, Lewis, and Guggenheim worked out the "macro" chemical (sociological) system aspects (ΔG) of this, and that Helmholtz, famously in 1882, proved ("On the Thermodynamics of Chemical Processes") the two, A and ΔG, were connected by a negative sign (–). The modern American should have been taught all of this before the age of 15. The fact that we are not taught any of this, nor even told about it in passing, and moreover that world leading chemical engineer thermodynamicists, e.g. John Prausnitz, head of molecular thermodynamics at UC Berkeley (world's leading chemical thermodynamics university), openly "deny" the implications of the theory—quote: “In the social sciences and in some humanities, thermodynamics may be useful as an analogy, as a suggestion for looking at a problem, but beyond that, I see little use of thermodynamics outside [physio-chemical] science” (28 Mar 2013)—in the face of the fact that chemical thermodynamicists decades ago declared this as the science that explains the "REAL WORLD" (Frederick Rossini, 1971). In short, it is acutely better to learn about the science of the "real world" than to waste so many years learning about the "make-believes of the economic systems of society" (Frederick Soddy, 1921) that we are currently taught in school.
Response: the advancement of electronic communication and intelligent machines will come to terms with mechanical regurgitations of non-applicable formulism; the Goethe-Helmholtz formula seems to have some similarity with the arguments at sintropia.it
Response: Thanks, for the secondary comments.Re: "arguments at sintropia.it“Atoms react in order to maintain stability.”
Is final cause based teleological, and hence erroneous, like the statement “life is moved by final causes”, being that both statements "violate temporal constraints by treating an entity's consequence [stability/final cause] as if it could be its own cause in a backward causal fashion." [4] It would be like saying that in the following reaction:
the "stability" inherent in the stronger water molecule bonds "caused" the movement. In other words, just as the atoms do not react (or are moved) by the end state (stability)—the final state is simply a point of equilibrium, wherein transformation content stops (entropy reaches a maximum)—or some type of future force, so to is life (animate matter) not moved by final cause.
Current models, to clarify, indicated that the movement is caused by exchange forces and behavior change of the fermion or bound state entity resulting therefrom. A non-teleological statement of the above, I am guessing, would be something along the lines of:“Atoms react spontaneously when the system shows a free energy decrease; increase in stability tends to result.”
or something along these lines. The issue here is is very subtle, often hinging on correctness of phrasing, some of this wording issue of which I am still grappling with. The issue where this teleology/non-teleology subtlety is ripe, as Mexican-born American chemist Vicente Talanquer has found through his 2007 dissectional study of eight leading US college chemistry textbooks, is in three areas: [5]● Second law descriptions (free energy minimization and or entropy maximization)
● Le Chatelier's principle (system reaction to perturbation descriptions)
● Octet rule (Abegg's rule) descriptions (electron geometrical patterns for atoms of atomic number 20 or less)
Much of human chemistry, human thermodynamics, and human physics are anchored in these three subjects, hence prudence is advised as to correctness of wording here, in respect to human movement; the library walk problem seems to be a good exercise to get one's bearings.
Stephen Ternyik | 3 Jun 2013 | 12:02 PM EDT | Post
Response: Interesting comments. On an aside, what do you think of Vilfredo Pareto's human molecule based socioeconomic theories? I have been working on him today, and I think I might use his homo economicus theories:in my Pitesti talk, albeit as a spring board to go into econoengineering based on chemical thermodynamics, rather than material science as Pareto did.
The term homo economicus—a Linnaeus-themed variant of John Mill's 1836 generic utility maximizing "economic man"—is said to be attributed to the work of Pareto and his 1896 statement that: "man himself; stripping him of a large number of his attributes, leaving out the passions, good or bad, reducing him to a kind of molecule that only acts in response to the forces of ophelimity”, which, as summarized by Australian economics historian Michael McLure (2002), is an abstract entity that only responds to the forces of ophelimity, in other words "an abstract molecule that acts only in response to economic forces". [6]
Response: The Pareto-optimum closed the scientific gap to marginal benefit (= statistical social science / 2 research articles send to you via e-mail); while working on the political economics of American Independence, I could apply his theory of elite circulation = history as cemetery of elites. Also of methodical interest is his dynamic view of speculation/speculators as drivers of socio-economic change, i.e. of 'Faustian' insight into our current monetary transition period.Response: Thanks. I printed those out. Power law (Pareto principle) stuff—the writings of Mark Buchanan aside—by itself is pretty boring; papers on which seem to be a dime a dozen. What I’m interested in if someone is going to discuss, e.g. 90 percent of a country’s wealth being confined to 10 percent of a population, I what to hear mechanism speculations, such as the following by Pareto:“The molecules of which the social aggregate is composed don’t stay at rest; some individuals enrich themselves, other impoverish themselves.”
There’s underlying physical laws at work here, as evidenced by the famous 1980s "lazy ant study". I want to know the mechanism to this. How, for instance, as Joseph Schumpeter states, does the following process actuate:“It can be shown that in all cases, that human molecules rise and fall within the class into which they are born, in a manner which fits the hypothesis that they do so because of their relative aptitudes; and it can also be shown, second, that they rise and fall across the boundary lines of their class in the same manner. This rise and fall into higher and lower classes as a rule takes more than one generation. These molecules are therefore families [see: family molecule] rather than individuals. And this explains why observers who focus attention on individuals so frequently fail to find any relation between ability and class position.”None of these Pareto principle / Zipf's law articles, give or take a few rare ones, attempt to go into this.
Response: Response: Yes! This is the reason why the Pareto approach has certain methodically limited applications and why you received the boring articles; social scientific research into the psychophysical laws of human action/behavior comes first and mathematical social science/statistical data science can consequently condense the body of learned knowledge. Your molecular methodology will be very effective at the micro-methodical level of group dynamics as decisive evolutionary quantum of humankind; however, also the content of a book is psychochemically more than ink, paper, etc., i.e. on the macro-methodical level, we have to explain the inter-re-active energetics of group behavior patterns as mass motion & development of animate matter (e.g. observe the large-scale co-operation of small-scale groups for a global soccer competition). Of course, these are inter-generational learning processes and only open systems have this learning ability; the professional economic focus on property (+ credit x interest) is short-sighted = also Marx and Engels went into this cognitive trap, owing to their bourgeois background; Heinrich Heine opined that the poor masses need 'soap and education'. Maybe, you will be one of the first to push the social scientific solution of this macro-molecular-problem forward !
| Exercises | Homework problems | Other |
On the wise protocol of Swedish physical chemist Sture Nordholm's penning of eight homework problems to his 1997 Journal of Chemical Education article “In Defense of Thermodynamics: an Animate Analogy”, the submitting author has provide (6 May 2013) two homework problems and or exercises, shown below, that will be added to the finial version of the submitted article, if published: ● Problem #1:
● Problem #2:
