Unlike most social scientists, economists publish papers whose main conclusions are normative, not just positive. That is, we explicitly recommend policies, rather than just predict the consequences that follow from choices. Moral philosophers are the main other academics who explicitly focus on making recommendations. Compared to philosophers, economists are more standardized and structured, allowing more specific recommendations.
We define primitive basically as any given organic life where metabolisms are distributed among more than one life form : an example of a primitive life form is the poorly named echo system, another would be symbiosis.
"...Fluid Intelligence (Gf): includes the broad ability to reason, form concepts, and solve problems using unfamiliar information or novel procedures.
Visual Processing (Gv): is the ability to perceive, analyze, synthesize, and think with visual patterns, including the ability to store and recall visual representations. ..."
This kind of classification is called top down design. We still have no definition of intelligence.The problem is that it is very tricky and complicated to make observations about this phenomenon (the mind). Some behavior is is tied to the organic machine that carries the phenomenon. Some behavior is neuromuscular articulation of said machine.Some behavior is abstract or meaningful in the machine's trajectory - like reproduction or eating.
What cognitive abilities or personality traits correspond to the propensity to use near versus far thinking? Is there any evidence, or do you have any speculations?
Some inchoate thoughts: focused versus dispersed cognitive ability (http://tinyurl.com/6u7xqcr); sensation versus intuitive Myer-Briggs style; and low versus high openness to experience (Big Five).
I'm not familiar with the typology logicals versus spatials. Can you provide a little background or a link? Does this distinction refer to logical versus spatial _ability_ (as in spatio-visual ability), that is Gf versus Gv in the Catell-Horn scheme?
The correlation apparent to me is one of logicals and spatials. Using scope and extent as parameters for individual intuition the logicals have limited scope and limited extent while the spatials have greater scope and greater extent. It would appear that the differences are one of experiences. However, it is likely to be the way the individuals shape the flow of mass as we sacrifice the whole truth of any given experience for the value to which we are constrained.
The logicals build a narrative while the spatials paint a picture.
"Unlike most social scientists, economists publish papers whose main conclusions are normative, not just positive."
You restrict your observation to "social science", but then compare econ to moral philosophy, which is usually not considered a social science. Wouldn't most applied science be taken to include some kind of "normative" focus, including e.g. engineering and medicine? After all, economists' normative recommendations, like engineers', are contingent on terminal values such as efficiency and equity.
Then there's a view that knowledge is local, and economics can help more locally than globally. Think for example this problem. The question is in my opinion can the economists make the decisions for them or can they just give some advice which is only part of what makes the good decision. Of course economists can give meaningful and powerful advice on margin.
I think to some extent this near-far is very situational. If you would go tell the Amish that you should do thing X because of model Y, would they consider your thinking quite far? What if a scientist came to your family and told to do X because of strong positive evidence Y. Who is far? What if your intuitions run against their beliefs? However in minimum wage, macroeconomics or other clear economic issues anything other than established economic theories seem rather far.
Another way of approaching this is to think if we had economics running all our societies would we end up with all the diversity we have now in terms of different countries or would we have more of the same? If the end result is more of the same can we objectively say that is very desirable? Maybe we just run into some form of Arrow's theorem here somewhere.
Think about aesthetics. I think economics is like the music notations and classical musicians. It does capture a lot of knowledge about what makes good music but I think the knowledge how to make good music is still very, very dispersed. It evolves in someone's garage and spreads out. If you look at the history of art, the innovation and change does not come from the established experts. In fact they've been usually against it. Now best art music was probably made in the golden era, but there're many kinds of music, and they've subjective and objective components.
I think the fundamental difference here is belief accountability and humanities as institution. In many other social science, there're no strong verification functions. While as in economics, you can start from some strong premises and end up with some rather normative conclusions. Mathematicians can for example check their calculations if they are right. Humanities are not exposed to such evolutionary pressure. There's in my opinion not same kind of belief accountability that is in more harder sciences.
Even without any credentials, I agree with the last paragraph. I think many economists are more like engineers with all their pros and cons. Thinking where engineering kind of reductionist thinking fails, is perhaps a way to understand where economics fails. Engineers want to use what works and fix the problem, while as maybe some different scientists want to find the ultimate optimal answers. Now that is only one distinction but its a start.
But I think it is important to make a distinction between economic recommendations that are strongly attached to values and those who are not. Some tax advice or institutional advice could be very value-neutral.
Anyway, I like deals, and I kind of commented here.
dispersed - do you mean distributed?
We define primitive basically as any given organic life where metabolisms are distributed among more than one life form : an example of a primitive life form is the poorly named echo system, another would be symbiosis.
"...Fluid Intelligence (Gf): includes the broad ability to reason, form concepts, and solve problems using unfamiliar information or novel procedures.
Visual Processing (Gv): is the ability to perceive, analyze, synthesize, and think with visual patterns, including the ability to store and recall visual representations. ..."
This kind of classification is called top down design. We still have no definition of intelligence.The problem is that it is very tricky and complicated to make observations about this phenomenon (the mind). Some behavior is is tied to the organic machine that carries the phenomenon. Some behavior is neuromuscular articulation of said machine.Some behavior is abstract or meaningful in the machine's trajectory - like reproduction or eating.
Where e=mc2e is logicalm is spatial.
What cognitive abilities or personality traits correspond to the propensity to use near versus far thinking? Is there any evidence, or do you have any speculations?
Some inchoate thoughts: focused versus dispersed cognitive ability (http://tinyurl.com/6u7xqcr); sensation versus intuitive Myer-Briggs style; and low versus high openness to experience (Big Five).
I'm not familiar with the typology logicals versus spatials. Can you provide a little background or a link? Does this distinction refer to logical versus spatial _ability_ (as in spatio-visual ability), that is Gf versus Gv in the Catell-Horn scheme?
Interesting post.
The correlation apparent to me is one of logicals and spatials. Using scope and extent as parameters for individual intuition the logicals have limited scope and limited extent while the spatials have greater scope and greater extent. It would appear that the differences are one of experiences. However, it is likely to be the way the individuals shape the flow of mass as we sacrifice the whole truth of any given experience for the value to which we are constrained.
The logicals build a narrative while the spatials paint a picture.
It is all about the behaviour of mass
"Unlike most social scientists, economists publish papers whose main conclusions are normative, not just positive."
You restrict your observation to "social science", but then compare econ to moral philosophy, which is usually not considered a social science. Wouldn't most applied science be taken to include some kind of "normative" focus, including e.g. engineering and medicine? After all, economists' normative recommendations, like engineers', are contingent on terminal values such as efficiency and equity.
Then there's a view that knowledge is local, and economics can help more locally than globally. Think for example this problem. The question is in my opinion can the economists make the decisions for them or can they just give some advice which is only part of what makes the good decision. Of course economists can give meaningful and powerful advice on margin.
I think to some extent this near-far is very situational. If you would go tell the Amish that you should do thing X because of model Y, would they consider your thinking quite far? What if a scientist came to your family and told to do X because of strong positive evidence Y. Who is far? What if your intuitions run against their beliefs? However in minimum wage, macroeconomics or other clear economic issues anything other than established economic theories seem rather far.
Another way of approaching this is to think if we had economics running all our societies would we end up with all the diversity we have now in terms of different countries or would we have more of the same? If the end result is more of the same can we objectively say that is very desirable? Maybe we just run into some form of Arrow's theorem here somewhere.
Think about aesthetics. I think economics is like the music notations and classical musicians. It does capture a lot of knowledge about what makes good music but I think the knowledge how to make good music is still very, very dispersed. It evolves in someone's garage and spreads out. If you look at the history of art, the innovation and change does not come from the established experts. In fact they've been usually against it. Now best art music was probably made in the golden era, but there're many kinds of music, and they've subjective and objective components.
I think the fundamental difference here is belief accountability and humanities as institution. In many other social science, there're no strong verification functions. While as in economics, you can start from some strong premises and end up with some rather normative conclusions. Mathematicians can for example check their calculations if they are right. Humanities are not exposed to such evolutionary pressure. There's in my opinion not same kind of belief accountability that is in more harder sciences.
Even without any credentials, I agree with the last paragraph. I think many economists are more like engineers with all their pros and cons. Thinking where engineering kind of reductionist thinking fails, is perhaps a way to understand where economics fails. Engineers want to use what works and fix the problem, while as maybe some different scientists want to find the ultimate optimal answers. Now that is only one distinction but its a start.
But I think it is important to make a distinction between economic recommendations that are strongly attached to values and those who are not. Some tax advice or institutional advice could be very value-neutral.
Anyway, I like deals, and I kind of commented here.