May 2012 – William Dare

Euclidean Geometry: Reason Made Manifest

“Let no one come to our school, who has not first learnt the elements of Euclid.”
– Notice posted on school doors by Greek philosophers, notably Plato’s Academy

A youth who had begun to read geometry with Euclid, when he had learnt the first proposition, inquired, “What do I get by learning these things?” So Euclid called a slave and said “Give him three pence, since he must make a gain out of what he learns.”
– Stobaeus, Extracts

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.”
– Euclid

“If Euclid failed to kindle your youthful enthusiasm, then you were not born to be a scientific thinker.”
– Albert Einstein

“I tell you that I accept God simply. But you must note this: If God exists and if He really did create the world, then, as we all know, He created it according to the geometry of Euclid.”
– Ivan, in The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

“Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions.”
– Eric Temple Bell

Lincoln explains why he was motivated to read Euclid:

“In the course of my law reading I constantly came upon the word “demonstrate”. I thought at first that I understood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that I did not. I said to myself, What do I do when I demonstrate more than when I reason or prove? How does demonstration differ from any other proof?I consulted Webster’s Dictionary. They told of ‘certain proof,’ ‘proof beyond the possibility of doubt’; but I could form no idea of what sort of proof that was. I thought a great many things were proved beyond the possibility of doubt, without recourse to any such extraordinary process of reasoning as I understood demonstration to be. I consulted all the dictionaries and books of reference I could find, but with no better results. You might as well have defined blue to a blind man.At last I said,- Lincoln, you never can make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means; and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father’s house, and stayed there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what demonstrate means, and went back to my law studies.”

I’m currently reading Euclid’s elements. I decided that I should employ a method to guide my madness. To begin, I will read each book within the Elements, completing all the propositions within each as they are demonstrated with a compass and straight edge. I will transcribe every definition, postulate, common notion, and proposition as I come to them. I will memorize every proposition until I have demonstrated mastery of every book of the Elements until perfection.

Reading Euclid’s Elements is apart of a larger goal of mine: I wish to master Newton’s Principia, eventually gaining confidence and knowledge of higher order physics and mathematics that I might apply to economic, social, and biological systems.

Thinking that we Know

I highly recommend watching this video: Daniel Kahneman on the Trap of ‘Thinking That We Know’.

I’ve read Kahneman’s books on behavioral economics, one titled “Choices, Values, Frames” which is collection of fundamental texts and articles on the discipline authored with Tversky, as well as “Advances in Behavioral Economics” which discusses recent ground breaking progress in the field.

Behavioral economics is a fascinating subject. Although it’s interesting to explore the intersection of economics and psychology, I’m really interested in how sociology (institutional structures) shape the psychology of individuals. That is, how it is people develop values and frames of reference a priori to any choice or decision. There is no such thing as an individual psychology. Every person develops their psychology as a result of their environmental influences, so these are undoubtedly socialized behaviors, but I would like to explore which institutional influences possess the greatest sway, be it through a perceived authority or an actual power.

In the aforementioned video lecture, Kahneman elaborates on the nature of perceptual systems at work in our conscious experience, which psychologists break down into system 1 and system 2. In brief, System 1 is characterized as producing intuitive, concrete, emotional, and immediate associations; while System 2 is characterized by inferential, abstract, cognitive, and delayed associations.

Higher Maternal Cortisol Correlates with Later Affective Problems

Somber data from Buss et al supporting the Barker Hypothesis/ Epigenetic programming for neuropsychiatric disorders:

Stress-related variation in the intrauterine milieu may impact brain development and emergent function, with long-term implications in terms of susceptibility for affective disorders. Studies in animals suggest limbic regions in the developing brain are particularly sensitive to exposure to the stress hormone cortisol. However, the nature, magnitude, and time course of these effects have not yet been adequately characterized in humans. A prospective, longitudinal study was conducted in 65 normal, healthy mother–child dyads to examine the association of maternal cortisol in early, mid-, and late gestation with subsequent measures at approximately 7 y age of child amygdala and hippocampus volume and affective problems. After accounting for the effects of potential confounding pre- and postnatal factors, higher maternal cortisol levels in earlier but not later gestation was associated with a larger right amygdala volume in girls (a 1 SD increase in cortisol was associated with a 6.4% increase in right amygdala volume), but not in boys. Moreover, higher maternal cortisol levels in early gestation was associated with more affective problems in girls, and this association was mediated, in part, by amygdala volume. No association between maternal cortisol in pregnancy and child hippocampus volume was observed in either sex. The current findings represent, to the best of our knowledge, the first report linking maternal stress hormone levels in human pregnancy with subsequent child amygdala volume and affect. The results underscore the importance of the intrauterine environment and suggest the origins of neuropsychiatric disorders may have their foundations early in life.
(Maternal cortisol over the course of pregnancy and subsequent child amygdala and hippocampus volumes and affective problems)

What are the long term social consequences for epigenetic programming of neuropsychiatric disorders?

Which demographic does this impact the most? Lower socioeconomic classes? Does this contribute to exacerbating inequality?

Not too long ago I read an article that showed that lower socioeconomic class was correlated with increased stress levels and decreased cognitive capacity.

Thoughts on Observation, Complexity, and Evolution

What people say they do and what they actually do are usually quite different. They may mean they do what they say, but it may not reflect our expectations of what we typically associate with the representative behavior. There is no ideal, no perfect standard. You may ask someone to “throw a ball”, but his or her idea of throwing a ball is probably different that your idea. Whether or not they are the same depends, of course, on whether you share the same sphere of socialization. Does “throw a ball” mean to throw underhand, overhand, or side-armed? Lob, toss, or beam? And even then the behavior or mechanics of throwing the ball will be dictated or constrained by the conditions at hand. This may depend on the type of ball, the person’s location throwing the ball, the location where the ball will be thrown, the weather or atmosphere, and the like.

Observation is paramount. We exist in the same world that has existed for millenia. Nothing has changed save our perceptions of it. Euclid and Pythagoras and Aristotle and Newton and Laplace and all the other great thinkers who walked this earth stood upon the same ground and cast their eyes upon the same sky and grappled with the same minutia as we do today.

How can we verbalize relationships that exist within the scope of a previously undefined context? Euclid accomplished this feat in the domain of geometry by elucidating sequential definitions, postulates, and propositions. We must transpose relationships from one context to another through the use of analogies and similarly, but to a lesser extent due to the ambiguity of the term, metaphors.

I was reading Newton’s Principia earlier today when I came upon his description of Definition 3, which discusses the inherent force of matter, and I noticed a particularly fascinating point that I overlooked before. He ended his description with the following sentence: “Resistance is commonly attributed to resting bodies and impetus to moving bodies; but motion and rest, in the popular sense of the terms, are distinguished from each other only by point of view, and bodies commonly regarded as being at rest are not always truly at rest.”

What Newton was describing is relativity. Einstein elaborated on this “minor” detail using the Cartesian system of coordinates which allowed him to create independent frames of reference for each body at rest or in motion; that is, Einstein utilized reference bodies or system-coordinates for transposing the spatial location of a body’s position as it relates to another rigid body. In this way spatial location could be abstracted so that bodies were no longer bound to a single frame of reference anchored to rigid bodies. This provided a means of calculating the relationship of two bodies in motion relative to each other without issuing a single fixed frame of reference.

Genius really. But that’s just the start. However, I don’t feel the urge to elaborate on this point.

My main interest is explanatory power, a kind of prophetic insight gained by understanding. Isn’t that what all knowledge and wisdom is? Not simply utility in the moment, but long term, enduring utility. Data changes. Wisdom endures.

If we look at the “data, information, knowledge, wisdom” hierarchy, we can see that at the base there is maximum flux and at the peak there is maximum staticity.

This image can act as a loose analogy for what happens during the evolution or devolution of both consciousness and physical phenomena. Where these two meet in synthesis is biology or neurobiology. How does a mind grasp the world? By grasping itself.

I want to understand how evolution occurs, or more exactly, how self-organizing systems or emergent complexity arises. If we can crack this code, I feel that one can understand and unlock secrets of the universe.

The question is: how can we predict the future? Is the solution for this question the same as the theory of everything? Observation is paramount. But the question is, how reliable are our instruments of observation? When Galileo looked through his first primitive telescopes, he observed distortions in the stars. The problem was that his telescope wasn’t properly collimated; that is, the instrument wasn’t adjusted and fine tuned to the precision necessary to render accurate inferences for observation.

What is important isn’t just what we’re observing, but where we are observing, the scope and details, and when we’re observing. Of course there is the how we are observing as well, whether it is direct or indirect observation or is through a single sense or multiple senses. Context is all important for synthesis, and synthesis is the essence of understanding, serving as the impetus of order. The greater the context, the greater the magnitude of synthesis. The greater the whole, the greater number of parts contained within and relationships shared among.

How do we define life? Perhaps life is a replicating adaptive organism that exhibits a degree of micro complexity. Life is chemistry, a continual reaction. But what is an organism? A body. But how do we delineate the body?

Is life defined by the software or hardware? The replication of information or simply the physcial arrangement. Is there a difference? Can one exist without the other?

There is no what it’s like. It is all associated senses to thought.

The earth is a closed system. Energy is entering the system, from the sun, but does not escape at the same rate. Evolution increases, i.e. complexity increases and organisms proliferate. DNA becomes more complex throughout time. Is complexity order or disorder? Are complexity and disorder inversely related?

How does evolution take place? Are we getting more complex or less complex?

The central question is this: What causes evolution? or rather, what causes matter to organize into greater and greater complexity, complexity that allows for incredible specialization, but at what cost? Are specialization and adaptability inversely related to durability?

It would seem that the simplest organisms are most durable, with micro-organisms like bacteria and cynobacteria possessing the most hardy history of endurance. But what of humans, or homos? We’ve been around for only a few hundred thousand years. Yet, we are incredibly complex and incredibly adaptable. What do we have in common with out biological ancestors, bacteria?

What role does energy play in this whole theater of evolution? And what of values? It would seem that values determine and dictate demand. Values act as an impetus of human activity, and they don’t even seem entirely necessary for survival. Why do some people die for their values, like martyrs? Is there a social utility, a species utility, where one individual acts on behalf of the collective in a form of self-sacrifice for the sake of a greater evolutionary advantage?

Values are intriguing. They cause humans to self-organize into groups, into organization, into institutions, into markets. Economics seeks to track and map this activity to prevent scarcity that would otherwise jeopardize the cohesive organization of the whole.

Is there a method for predicting values? For predicting behavior? Is change too great an unknown to surmount with inference, even with infinite data and information? Given the rise of computers, I have to wonder what our capacity will be to accurately accommodate the entire spectrum of influence acting in a given context and accurately forecast long term outcomes.

More thoughts later.

Atlanta, GA: Economic and Retail Market Summary

Economy

Atlanta is seeing signs of an economic upswing. Despite employment level fluctuations throughout 2011, data reveals that employment levels rose as 30,300 jobs were added. Though well above the historical average, unemployment shares dropped to 9.4% in December 2011 from a high of 10.5% in June 2011 and 10.1% in December 2010. Atlanta is positioned as a major destination for commerce. Professional and business services, Atlanta’s largest sector, have shown greater than national average growth, adding 16,500 jobs last year. Trade, transportation and utilities sector also added 10,000 jobs last year. Increased activity at Georgia’s ports and passenger traffic at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport due to a $1.2 billion expansion which added 12 international gates to total 40 has fueled transportation and logistics job growth. Though the market is diverse and made improvements in 2011, the area suffers from reserved employer hiring, a weakened real estate market, and a higher than average unemployment rate. Atlanta experienced major growth from 2000 to 2007 as the fastest growing US metro with 33% of its new residents immigrating from abroad. While uncertainty exists at the local and national level, projections estimate Atlanta will continue to see job growth in 2012 with forecasts pointing to approximately 31,500 added jobs. Gross Metro Growth (GMP) is projected to be 3.8% in 2012 compared to 1.9% in 2011.

Retail Market

Retail remains stagnant while vacancy remains unchanged. Inventory levels have shown little fluctuation since 2009. Data shows that negative absorption is leveling off and projections indicate positive absorption into 2012. Despite negative absorption in the second and third quarters 2011, the year ended with a strong positive finish and increased completions. Low absorption has caused vacancy rates to remain stagnant, finishing just over 14% in the fourth quarter. Projections estimate modest decreases in vacancy rates of 50 bps in the upcoming year and beyond as absorptions and completions increase. Effective rents decreased marginally as vacancies rose post-recession but absorption increases will drive effective rents back up for 2012 and beyond.

What key determinants are responsible for a graduate’s starting wages?

The following is a report I compiled with two friends to determine which factors had the greatest impact on a college graduate’s starting wages. Though the calculations are sound, the report has not been edited for grammatical errors or clarity. Our data was based on publications from 2010.

Continue reading “What key determinants are responsible for a graduate’s starting wages?”

Small Spaces: Real Estate and Consumption

The American public is broke and overworked. People will no longer be buying homes like they once did. Instead, they’ll be be living in smaller homes or renting. Data shows that asking rent for vacant rent units has steadily risen over the years due to a shortage of rentals. Investors with the capital will buy the surplus homes and rent them out to capitalize on the growing demand for cheaper, more affordable housing. Given the low rates, one should consider buying and renting homes now.

Because renters own less automobiles than their home owning counterparts, urban areas will increase in popularity as walking and riding bikes becomes a more affordable way of travel. This means more frequent shopping outings. In addition, small living spaces means less consumption. People will no longer have the available space to store their goods. Those who downsize will seek storage centers. Given wage stagnation, the next generation of workers will probably be consuming much less than their parents. This will have negative impacts on our economy.

Student debt has risen exponentially over the years, with the government accruing the most nonrevolving student debt. Seeing as how the government is already struggling to make ends meet, this isn’t a good sign. If the debt bubble pops, the government will have a mess on its hands, but due to laws that prevent defaults on student loans, most of the damage will occur with the borrowers and severely constrain their consumption. Wage stagnation, coupled with rising debt, specifically student and credit debt, will lead to declines in aggregate consumption.

On a side note: does effort increase as financial rewards decrease? That makes me think there is method to all this madness: maybe increasing taxes isn’t so bad for the national economy? Maybe wage stagnation isn’t so bad for the economy after all? After all, despite decades of stagnating wages, productivity has continued rising. I recall economist David Levine who argues in favor of the “income effect” resulting from higher taxes or, more exactly, the propensity to work longer and harder because they are receiving less. But that’s another discussion. Moving on…

As the baby boomer generation exits the work force during the next few years, so too will their consumption on normal goods and services due to more diligent saving. Instead they will consume more health care services. This will increase the growth of the health care industry. They will also see financial advisory and wealth management services, leading to increases in the finance industry. Also, retirement (or over-60) community real estate will experience a surge in demand.

Thoughts on Facts

What are facts? Can facts exist without being articulated? Are all facts symbolic and conceptual, or actual and concrete? Can we distinguish between inductive facts and deductive facts, and does this impact the confidence or reliability of the truthfulness of the fact? Are facts useful, descriptive, explanatory?

I conceive facts to be representations that index phenomena. These representations may exist as subjective impressions upon the mind, as memories, or symbolic inscriptions upon the world, as words or signs.

Do facts exist independently from the mind? I would argue that there are no facts without a mind to conceive them. The mind provides temporal order: a conceptual structure of experience. Apart from the mind, there are no facts because there is no order to conceive: reality is in chaotic, intemporal flux, void of perspective, and therefore context, which the mind provides. The structure of experience is delineated by indexing phenomena, specifically entities and the relationships existing between them. Facts provide the means of structuring phenomena by indexing the location of specific points and relationships circumscribed by the perspective afforded by conscious experience.

Facts do not exist apart from a mind to conceive them. A fact may be presented to two minds and conceived in two different ways. The utility rendered from this fact is not diminished by how it is conceived.

Do facts exist? Do concepts exist? Again, I do not believe propositional knowledge alone is enough to justify the existence of a fact. I believe procedural knowledge (how to) and phenomenal knowledge (what its like/ qualia) is necessary for an adequate representation that resembles its worldly parent.

Consider: “The cat is on the mat.” Is this a fact? Is this sentence stating a fact (telling us this is, in fact, the case), or is it indexing a factual phenomenon? In the former, the sentence is tautological: Ok, “the cat is on the mat”, in the same way that “one is a number”. In the latter, the sentence is referring to a specific state of affairs.

Does it matter whether the sentence is indexing a worldly phenomenon? The article “the” in “the cat is..” is referring to a specific cat, not just any cat. This is where I would introduce the need to delineate the scope and context of the fact. Are we reading the sentence within a story book? Or are we stating the sentence to arrive at an agreement about the location of the cat?

I would like to make a distinction between formal facts and informal facts, that is: deductive facts and inductive facts. Deductive facts are axiomatically derived from a set of premised truths. Inductive facts are statistically derived from confidence intervals referring to empirical observational.

Planets

In Greek, “planet” is from Latin planeta, planetes, from Ancient Greek πλανήτης (planētēs) variant of πλάνης (planēs, “wanderer, planet”).

When the astronomers of antiquity cast their gaze upon the nights sky above, they noticed certain lights wandering about in eccentric patterns of motion, in contrast to the fixed stars in the background. These lights were thought to be gods wandering about in the heavens and were thus named “planets” and received their respective Greek god names, later translated by the Romans into our modern titles for the planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter (Uranus and Neptune were discovered later).

Uncommon

I do not choose to be a common man,
It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,
I seek opportunity … not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen.
Humbled and dulled by having the
State look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life
To the guaranteed existence;
The thrill of fulfillment
To the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
Nor my dignity for a handout
I will never cower before any master
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect.
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say,
“This I have done.”
—Dean Alfange, My Creed

US Bank Runs and Economic Policy

What if the US suddenly lost its position as the worlds reserve currency? A run on the US dollar will cause economic stagflation: as the dollar value falls the exchange rate will depreciate, causing inflation to increase and raising business costs which will lead to layoffs/ increased unemployment. Because current US domestic demand is driven by the borrowing of substantial foreign investment, available loanable funds will decrease, borrowing will constrain, and US demand and aggregate output will fall, consequently leading to financial market collapse and economic decline. Because of a large trade deficit, a depreciating exchange rate will cause inflation to subsequently rise as more dollars are needed to buy less, increasing the cost of imports. Unemployment will increase as consumption falls. The government will need to print money to maintain consumption, which will further devalue the dollar and cause runaway inflation.

In addition to being the world’s reserve currency due to historical US political and economic stability, foreign investors are attracted to the developed financial markets offering high liquidity. Large foreign capital accumulation can be costly as sterilization can cause the return on reserves to drop lower than the interest paid on issued bonds. Foreign investors with much government bonds will demand higher interest rates and start targeting other investments, such as debt, due to their relatively low risk, high liquidity, and steady returns. High foreign investment appreciates the exchange rate, increases a trade deficit, and may lead to an over-valuation of currency.

Suppose the US economy is operating under “normal conditions”— assuming 2.7% inflation, 5.8% unemployment, 3.8% economic growth. Which policy is more effective, fiscal or monetary? The Fed operates under the legal mandate to ensure stable growth and full employment. If these are the measures of “effective”, monetary policy should be more effective because it causes “immediate changes” in the money supply and interest rates, immediately combating inflation. If there are supply shocks, monetary policy best stabilizes prices. Under the assumption of the Taylor Rule, monetary policy achieves its goals by adjusting target inflation rates and federal funds/ discount rate with tools such as open market operations and quantitative easing which alter the money supply. Under rational expectations, if the Fed announces higher inflation in the future, consumption should increase now and unemployment decreases. Because consumers are not rational and prices are sticky, changes in the money supply do not immediately impact the consumption, so there is a multi-month lag in response. However, a zero-bound funds rate has the same effect as a contractionary supply shocks, so while it may stimulate consumption, it may be detrimental to welfare.

Fiscal policy requires legislation and implementation which takes time to impact the economy. Taxes will not respond quickly enough to a supply shocks, and subsidies not not evenly distribute the benefits due to crowding.

Also, despite decreases in prime rates and large denominated CD rates, credit card rates are very sticky and do not respond accordingly due to habit forming consumption. If an economy possess much revolving credit that drives consumption, monetary policy may not be most effective for increasing welfare, but instead benefit lenders.

ENOSIS

by: Christopher Cranch (1813-1892)

THOUGHT is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.

We are spirits clad in veils;
Man by man was never seen;
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen.

Heart to heart was never known;
Mind with mind did never meet;
We are columns left alone,
Of a temple once complete.

Like the stars that gem the sky,
Far apart, though seeming near,
In our light we scattered lie;
All is thus but starlight here.

What is social company
But a babbling summer stream?
What our wise philosophy
But the glancing of a dream?

Only when the sun of love
Melts the scattered stars of thought;
Only when we live above
What the dim-eyed world hath taught;

Only when our souls are fed
By the Fount which gave them birth,
And by inspiration led,
Which they never drew from earth,

We like parted drops of rain
Swelling till they meet and run,
Shall be all absorbed again,
Melting, flowing into one.

Wolfpen Creek
by: James Still

How it was in that place, how light hung in a bright pool
Of air like water, in an eddy of cloud and sky,
I will long remember. I will long recall
The maples blossoming wings, the oaks proud with rule,

The spiders deep in silk, the squirrels fat on mast,
The fields and draws and coves where quail and peewees call.
Earth loved more than any earth, stand firm, hold fast;
Trees burdened with leaf and bird, root deep, grow tall.

Arb Grad

So I graduated from college this past weekend. It was quite the celebration. Though, I’m not sure why we were celebrating. Sure, I graduated: I pasted a societal litmus test, a trial for obedient preservance. Am I proud that I was able to pull this off? I’m not sure. Am I proud that I was able to subvert my authentic curiosities in favor of requisites of value dictated by others? Is this achievement? I suppose, in a way. I’m not sure of anything, really. Where is the glow that once resided behind the corners of achievement? Where is the eager curiosity to pull back the curtain and reveal the rewards of painstaking labor? I feel as though I know what is behind the curtain, and it doesn’t contain anything that I consider valuable and telling. Who’s value? Surely not mine, not in origin anyway.

Where ever you go, there you are. Where have I gone? I need to find a job. Time is running out. A “job”. I need to collect my enthusiasm once again and pantomime to the world that I am eager to embrace her demands. But the fact remains that I don’t want to yield to her demands, I want to create my own. I want to issue orders and cast visions that blanket the world in multifarious colors.

Christians. Religious people. It all gives them meaning. Perhaps that’s what I want, meaning? But I want to imbue the world with my own meaning, my own idea of what’s worthwhile.

Everyone was happy. The sun burst onto the ocean of mortarboards. The speaker’s voice vibrated across the quad, through the trees and banners and flags. Sweat dribbled down foreheads and cheeks. They waited with much anticipation. The orations were terse, thankfully, but the list of soon to be graduates was long. The students waited patiently to stand with their fellow classmates and walk across the stage, shake hands with a woman they called dean and a man they called chancellor. Both were garbed in their ridiculous robes, donned like clergy, their oxford caps resembling the biretta of bishops. Pictures were snapped. Paper fans fluttered in front of faces to keep cool.

My row was called, I stood. My head panned the crowd of students clustered around me. Looking for familiar faces, I surveyed the visiting families seated beyond them. All were poised with adulation and excitement. Those standing with smiles and cameras greeted their proud accomplishments with waving hands and whistles. I stopped at the occasional friend peering back at me and smiled, sheepish and coy. They would extend a nod and smile back, throw forward a thumbs up of approval, or hoot and hollar my name and applaud.

Libations followed, Champagne and strawberries, hors d’oeuvres and iced tea. And more pictures. And crying. The mothers cried. They voiced their praise to bystanding family. They hugged and demanded more and more pictures. As the heat took hold the elation subsided and these activities quickly grew stale.

Then lunch.

The fraternity gathered at the local cafe for a smorgasbord of sorts, a buffet with plenty of wine and beer to wet the palate and loosen the labia. It was nice.

Religious people. Why do they insist on being right? They hold that their law, their beliefs, their word is paramount to any other because it is divined by a god that seems to pay little attention and grace to others.

Everyone wants to be important, to have some significant place in the world. After all, isn’t that my greatest aspiration? Isn’t that what keeps me breathing on? To have a place, a location in the world that contributes to the cohesion and stability of others. But on what scale? Among a few friends? Within the family?

Malls. Mall nutrition. What is it? Not the food. It’s the spiritual nutrition. The power to adorn our lives with something articulated by our will, to accessorize with paraphenalia that communicates to the world that we are unique, that we are special, that we have something that sets us apart. So we combine all these these things, these mass productions, into a mural that comes to be known as our “stuff”. We wear this stuff and purchase giant sheds called “homes” to store our stuff. We buy these homes in nice safe temperate neighborhoods with other storage centers, and we decorate them with stuff, we fix stuff to our lawns, arrange the vegetation, hang stuff, drape stuff, shutter stuff, cabinet stuff, tile stuff, counter stuff, wood stuff. To show off our stuff. To make ourselves, to articulate ourselves, to appear outwardly for others, to create a spectacle of art we dub our “lifestyle” or “taste” or “class”. Stuff.

Malls. Everyone is exposed for everyone else to see. We observe their habits of mind through their habits of buying. What is cool? That purchase reveals quite a bit about what you think cool is. More importantly, it reveals quite a bit about what you think others think cool is. No one would dress too radically for fear of being rejected. We lie to ourselves if we think we act autonomously. No, we appeal to others for our approval, for our affirmation of self. This is how our meaning, our place in the world, is derived.

My world is fragmented. It exists as a barrage of interwoven confetti, threads that fray and blow about in the tapestry of life, that endless flickering of memories. My job consists of pulling these threads apart, unweaving this massive cartoon, this massive bedding where the dead sleep, so that I may knit my own garment to wear about and weather this world in.

Please, take me. Make me meaningful. And I read the books. I watch the movies. I appeal to the sources of authority. I remain subservient, never positing my own valuation, never acting on behalf of my own will, my own spirit. Oh, it is onery, it is cranky, but I mustn’t do anything too radical. Rubbish.

I love the spite. I love the scowl that onlookers provide when my antics, my bold reserve, treads upon their fabricated flowery vision of the world. Their monochromatic light is but a mere reflection of someone elses pulse, and they are frightened by my full spectrum.

Action, action, action. What is action? Action towards what? Vision, goals. Who has established these fictions? Who written them up? Who penned them with authority? Where is the man, the men, that insist on maintaining such a controlling culture, such a confusing collision of apathy?

I must find a job, in the meantime anyway.

I want people to laugh at me. I want them to scold me. To denigrate me. I know that if no one mocks me, I am not being offensive enough, I am not being bold enough. I must tread where no one treads, and that requires going where no one is going, where comfort and familiarity are farthest from reach. Will I fail? I hope so. I hope to fail many times. And I hope that my strength builds with each fail, with each fall.

Where there is no resistance, there is no change: I must poke past the teetering tipping point if I wish to cull a cascade of curiosities.

These religious folks are no different than these academic folks. Both are fearful of a world where they are in control. They fear themselves because they are unknown to themselves, and so they appeal to god and manufactured methods of confirming the reality of their senses. And so they become mere robots, slaves to metaphysical ecstasy or reified affection.

Need to write some emails.

Arb

Christians. Religious people. It all gives them meaning. Perhaps that’s what I want, meaning? But I want to imbue the world with my own meaning, my own idea of what’s worthwhile.

Everyone was happy. The sun burst onto the ocean of mortarboards. The speakers voice vibrated across the quad, through the trees and banners and flags. Sweat dribbled down foreheads and cheeks. They waited with much anticipation. The orations were terse, thankfully, but the list of soon to be graduates was long. The students waited patiently to stand with their fellow students and walk across the stage, shake hands with a woman they called dean and a man they called chancellor. Both were garbed in their ridiculous robes, donned like clergy, their oxford caps resembling the biretta of bishops. Pictures were snapped. Paper fans fluttered in front of faces to keep cool.

My row was called, I stood. My head panned the crowd of students looking for familiar faces and surveyed the visiting families seated beyond them. All were poised with adulation and excitement. Those standing with smiles and cameras greeted their proud accomplishments with waving hands and whistles. I stopped at the occasional friend peering back at me and smiled sheepish and coy. They would extend a nod and smile back, throw forward a thumbs up of approval, or hoot or hollar my name and applaud.

Then lunch.

Malls. Mall nutrition. What is it? Not the food. It’s the spiritual nutrition. The power to adorn our lives with something articulated by our will, to accessorize with paraphenalia that communicates to the world that we are unique, that we are special, that we have something that sets us apart. So we combine all these these things, these mass productions, into a mural that comes to be known as our “stuff”. We wear this stuff and purchase giant sheds called “homes” to store our stuff. We buy nice homes in nice safe temperate neighborhoods with other storage centers, and we decorate our homes with stuff, we fix stuff to our laws, arrange the vegetation, hang stuff, drape stuff, shutter stuff, cabinet stuff, tile stuff, counter stuff, wood stuff. Stuff.

My world is fragmented. It exists as a barrage of interwoven confetti, threads that fray and blow about in the tapestry of life. My job consists of pulling these threads apart, unweaving this massive cartoon, this massive bedding where the dead sleep, so that I may knit my own garment to wear about and weather this world in.

I must find a job, in the meantime anyway.

I want people to laugh at me. I want them to scold me. To denigrate me. I know that if no one mocks me, I am not being offensive enough, I am not being bold enough. I must tread where no one treads, and that requires going where no one is going, where comfort and familiarity are farthest. Will I fail? I hope so. I hope to fail many times. And I hope that my strength builds with each fail, with each fall.

These religious folks are no different than these academic folks. Both are fearful of a world where they are in control. They fear themselves because they are unknown to themselves, and so they appeal to god and methods of confirming the reality of their senses. And so they become mere robots, slaves to metaphysical ecstasy or reified affection.

Need to write some emails.

American Inequality

A Case for Economic Equity and Long-Term Growth (Draft)

Abstract

Macroeconomic policy issues, as well as the theoretical assumptions underpinning their conclusions, must be considered within a political Liberalism framework that ensures and upholds the democratic values of freedom and equality inherent to the constitution. The complexity of economic development requires a holistic empirical approach that accounts for the historical, political, sociological, and business factors contributing to the makeup of society when crafting and recommending economic policy.

For this paper we will assume that economic growth is the aim for society. Inequality is a product of increased bargaining power resulting from increasingly powerful institutions in the business, financial, and governmental sectors (Kumhof 2011; Barnhizer 2004; Argyres 1999). Research has repeatedly confirmed growing inequality globally and domestically (Hisnanick 2011). Inequality, manifested as widening income and wealth disparity, contributes to domestic and global account imbalances, consumer debt, and economic stagflation, i.e. inflation and unemployment (Kumhof 2012; Rajan 2012). In addition, inequality is linked to key social variables such as political stability, civil unrest, democratization, education attainment, health and longevity, and crime rates (Thorbecke 2002). Greater economic equality always results in greater long run economic prosperity for the whole. (Wilkinson 2009)

The thesis explored in this paper is that bargaining power inequalities causally contribute to economic and socioeconomic inequality due to path dependency, organizational inertia, and habit formation. Bargaining power inequalities increase proportionally with capital accumulation, concentration, and centralization. This paper will show that the restoration of equal bargaining power will rectify financial and labor market imperfections and spur economic growth. In addition, this paper argues that US economic growth over the past several decades has been vastly overestimated due to increases in financialization.

Executive Summary

In order to determine the best policy for rectifying inequality and spurring economic growth, this essay provides an overview of current economic and socioeconomic conditions within the US and abroad, identifies problems within those conditions, and details the contributing historical economic policies that shaped them. It then examines the systemic causal mechanisms contributing to current US economic conditions, present potential policy solutions that seek to address these underlying causal mechanisms, and lastly interpret and rank their theoretical effectiveness. This paper addresses the following areas:

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Inequality Research References

“The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 B.C.

Historical Economic Policy and its Effect

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Ation

What if all the relationships, all the wisdom and knowledge worth knowing, was within a person? And what role do institutions play? They preserve and perpetuate these relationships, this knowledge.

What if the institution preserved the wrong wisdom? What if a race of people existed that possessed the wrong knowledge? That is, what if the knowledge that everyone sought to preserve and possess failed to preserve them and actually possessed them?

What if everylasting life was a way for consciousness to be passed down from generation to generation? What if the level and purity and complexity of these relationships thought up in the mind, resembling a platonic or pythagorean nature, were preserved through institutions, in religions through the priests of old?

What is religion? From religō (“I bind back or behind”), from re + ligō (“I tie, bind, or bandage”). To bind words to the mind, through meditative reflection. Similar to education’s methods of inculcation. Both are useful, no? But to what extent?

What is man but nothing more than his culture? I insist: man is purely his culture. If you were to toss a new born into the jungle, it would be animalistic. What is civilization but nothing more than a complex web of relationships among entities in the world?

There is no man, no definitive conception of humanity to speak of, without culture. It is society’s productions, or “culture”, that manufactures man into the image we esteem him to possess today. And how tainted and obtuse and slanted is this image? How myopic and distorted? Our modern day image of man is a palladium erected to protect against our own possibility, our own potential; thus it is our greatest weakness. Let us discard limits and notion of definite certainty. Let us embrace chaos with our eyes cast inward and outward, but let us spare our eyes from observing the pantomimes of others, let us rely on our own intuitions regarding worldly wisdom that is checked by humility and bolstered by courage.

Guile

What is guilt? In which situations do you feel guilt? When do you feel guilt?
When an bad action occurs that we feel responsible for?
There’s a desire to undo, or compensate, for the action: to make up for it.
When you feel guilty, you feel in debt. But rather than remorse or apology which occupies a psychological debt, guilt is a physical debt.

Is guilt selfish? Yes, but it’s less selfish than not being sorry. Usually when people don’t feel guilty they’re looked at as evil.

I believe people often conflate being sorry and being apologetic. Can you be sorry without wanting to apologize? I believe so.

Appearances Rule

This is what I have learned: as a rule, people do not think. That is reserved for only the very few. I can only think for myself, not concern myself with what other people fail to think or do. I need to leverage wisdom and erudition gained from experience and reflective thought to aid my goals. What are my goals? To influence people, to resolve their problems? Do I offer myself up as a messiah? How do I want to be remembered? Whether you are Jesus, or Ghandi, or a CEO, or an investor, or a celebrity, your essential duty is all the same: resolve other people’s problems, through art or wisdom or technology or inspirational works.

Appearances are all that matter. It’s not what you’re looking at, it’s what you see that counts. Like I said, I can’t be concerned with what other people see. I can only acknowledge what and how they see and provide a means to capitalize on that. There is only one god, and he resides within me, as me.

The Concept of Mind: Structures of Experience

After many conversations with friends about experience vs. reflection, I decided I should attempt to extricate how it is I grasp consciousness and its inhabiting structures. These are simply ongoing notes and reflections written for my own personal reference. Though it may not be immediately obvious, there is a certain logic to the order in which these thoughts are introduced.

Being

A living organism is a subjective being, and a subjective being possesses a body. A subject possesses a perspective, while an object is possessed by a perspective.

Stimulation

Stimulation occurs due to a change or transference of energy, otherwise called an affect. Stimulation acting on the body produces an affect which leaves an impression on the mind. Sensory stimulation occurs due to an affect on the sensory organs located on the body.

Reflection

Memory is produced by recalling past impressions

Reflection is a synthetic process which integrates past memories with present experience; by retrieving past impressions, of varying quantity and quality, and creating new associations.

Reflection extricates concepts from their originally generated, or prior applied, context and introduces the concepts into the present consciousness.

Experience

Experience is a feature of all living beings, rendered by responding to stimulations derived from the external world.

Experience is feeling: the production of sensations on the mind.

Experience, prior to the introduction of any and all structural concepts, is a swirling chaos of pure feeling and sensation, with each sensation represented to varying magnitudes and degrees. The absence of any order is confusing, swirling, melting, blooming, variegating; a storm of senses, containing every color, sound, smell, touch, taste; with all the accompanying pain and pleasure; boiling of shade, hue, tint, tone.

Experience can be conscious or unconscious.

Consciousness

Consciousness is produced by active reflection. Unconsciousness is produced by inactive reflection.

Consciousness is marked by reflection: it is the feature of reproducing impressions—memories— and hold them before the “mind’s eye” for consideration (for application or entertainment).

Reflective consciousness may produce the feeling of experience by reproducing memories of prior experience, otherwise known as imagining, but this experience is not actively “living”, but presently “dead”. According to the sensations produced, that which is living is fluid and changing; while that which is dead is static and persisting.

Consciousness has many levels: it is not simply being “alive”. There are many levels— or orders— of consciousness. Higher order consciousness arises in proportion to complexity: the greater the complexity, the greater consciousness.

The complexity of consciousness is proportional to the quantity and quality of reflection. By quantity I speak temporally of “how often”, specifically done. By quality I speak spatially of “how many”, specifically kinds.

The faculties of consciousness relate to both the sensory input organs and the sensory integration organs. The five senses constitute the input organs, while the integration organs relate to associative memory.

The sensory input organs are developed according to their sensitivity which arises from exposure. Each input organ develops independently from or in combination with other input organs. Independent exposure produces depth; while combinatory exposure produces breadth, with depth increasing in proportion to exposure of combinations..

The integration organs break down further into two aspects of integration, being intelligence and creativity. Intelligence relates to efficient associative memory, while creativity relates to effective associative memory.

Efficient associative memory arises from similar stimulation, repetition, or repeated exposure, or routine; which produce strengthened habits of thought.

Effective associative memory arises from dissimilar stimulation, instances, or diverse exposure, or novelty; which produce weakened habits of thought.

Conceptual Structures

How concepts structure experience into knowledge:

Concepts render conscious experience; that is, concepts render experience conscious.

Concepts are the lens, the paradigm, the filter, the mold, the scope, the structure, the order with which experience is made conscious.

Conceptual structures arise from reflection.

Concepts order experience; they serve to distinguish distinctions among the spectrum of colorful feeling so that colorful feeling can be indexed according to its kind and utilized when the appropriate context calls for it.

All knowledge resembles a polyhedron bi-pyramid. Each domain of knowledge (experience or thought) is a triangular face on the pyramid, with every domain representing a specific context, or culture or social structure.

Concepts are geometric shapes or tools; they exist as structures that organize the integration of experience.

When I imagine what a single concept is within a single domain, my thoughts produce a two dimensional geometric shape that resembles a snowflake.

If the concept is complex and developed by experimental experience, and incorporates many domains of thought, I imagine a three dimensional solid, with one face visible to the domain, and the interrelations with other conceptual blocks hidden from sight, existing internally within the pyramid.

Context

A context is the associations established among objects by circumscribing the area around the location of a given point.

A context is determined by the degrees of relation among objects proximate to the given point of a subject’s location.

A context is an ecology and system: an ecology is the entire sum of objective demands acting within the context; a system is a series of connections produced by cause and demand.

The context produced by conscious experience is a domain of thought; a perspective of mind.

Each context is a unique, temporally and spatially located, experience with specific environmental demands, being physical or social. Context is the situation of a given organism or subjective being, in present or past.

Context is defined as the problem; the environmental demands. Every organism is programmed to self-preserve: survival is an organisms priority. As such, every context poses a problem, with the ease of the problem increasing in proportion to the level of adaptation.

The greater the problem or struggle or chaos or confusion, the greater the need for reflection, and the greatest potential for generating new concepts.

Concepts are always generated within a specific context, to solve the problem of context and its individuated environmental demands; therefore concepts are anchored to the context in which they were generated. Concepts may be unanchored when they are reproduced through reflection, introduced to the consciousness, and applied to the context of present or past experience.

Division of labor diversifies contexts by delineating and indexing concepts according to the specific context in which they were generated. In this way division of labor acknowledges the utility of context and the accompanying specialization of concepts.

Each face of the geometric solid represents a the conceptual structure of a single perspective.

Environment is determined by the temporal and spatial location of a subjective being in an external world constituted by finite matter composing infinite entities.

Particulars

All particulars are ideas of consciousness:: All facts are particulars of experience.

All ideas are indexed concepts; ideas are truth, and cannot be challenged by experience.

All facts are indexed experiences; facts are probable, and can be challenged by experience.

An untested fact is only an idea.

A tested idea is a fact only in the context in which is was tested.

All premises must be grounded in experience.

All facts must be grounded in experience.

Convergence

Convergence occurs due to association.

Convergent lines intersect at angles which represent logical connectors, or operators or associations.

Operators connect or hold the concept together and give it shape.

Dualities of Consciousness

I come to possess concepts in two ways: passively or actively.

1. Passive concepts are yielded deductively, as given ideas.

2. Active concepts are yielded inductively, as created facts. .

1. Knowledge is ideas that have been passively structured with concepts: knowledge is rote, analytic, two dimensional, logically sequential, abstract and monochromatic

2. Wisdom is experience that has been actively structured with concepts: wisdom is intuitive, synthetic, three dimensional, holistic, concrete and colorful.

1. I passively receive concepts through books or passively listening to lecture or discourse. These concepts arrive prefabricated and incomplete. In this way passive concepts exist a priori to experience until the extent of their full nature fully tested through experimentation and the geometric solid can be developed. These concepts are linked

When I receive a passive concept, each sentence or logical operation produces or adds black lines, points, or angles to the shape. The lines are the premises; and the angles are the operators. The concept itself is hollow and possesses no internal color and therefore no way of distinguishing it from other similar concepts without an external indicator. In fact, when I think about an abstract concept, it’s sometimes difficult to see where premised lines begin and where they end, which angles of logic are part of the line or part of two separate premised lines intersecting.

2. I actively produce concepts though the process of organizing chaotic or confusing experience. That is, a problem imposes disorder on my experience and by turning over the problem within my mind— by reflecting and describing and rotating its nature; and asking how and why and when it works and where it comes from and what it associates with— I produce an erect a structure which orders the experience. This structure is a concept.

Every actively produced concept is a result of applied pressure, applied work, constantly squeezing, testing, stretching, challenging, and undermining its ability to yield a concept that orders and explains experience.

Synthetic Unification

New concepts are constructed when the particulars of mind converge in a context, as a result of reflection.

Wisdom is synthesis of contexts, or disparate domains of knowledge, and the concepts located within.

The process of testing particulars yields experience.

The process of testing concepts within a context yields understanding.

The process of testing concepts in various contexts yields wisdom.

The bipyramid capstone is the unifying concept; the pinnacle is the all seeing eye; the concept located at the highest point is the higher order self, or a consciousness that is fully aware of its self, due to reflection.

The top of the pyramid is where synthesis occurs: all concepts exist under this synthesizing capstone.

Structuring Consciousness

No matter what the domain, there is always a single unifying concept at the top, which resembles a capstone, in which all other concepts are built upon. This concept possesses the same shape and is positioned in the same location for every domain. Reaching the very point of this capstone requires emptying all concepts from the mind, and feeling entirely. When this occurs synthesis can occur among other domains of thought and their concepts.

The concepts extending from under this unifying concept all resemble irregular geometric shapes. The farther down, the more irregular, and the less compatible with concepts horizontal to it. Extending away from the unifying pinnacle located at the tip of the capstone, the base extends down infinitely as each additional concept justifying existing concepts indexes a new aspect of experience.

Each concept possesses very unique features that allow it to integrate seamlessly with other concepts that possess inversely congruent features, so that they rest stable on one another. In this way all compatible concepts are inversely related (dualistic), like puzzle pieces, possessing a supply or demand that links them together, a void or an instantiating, a cause or effect, a deficit or surplus. Every concept contrasts with an interlinking, compatible concept in which it is connected.

New domains of knowledge cannot be built up from passive concepts. They can only reconstruct an existing domain of knowledge. Passive concepts can build down, developing or elaborating new concepts, from existing domains of knowledge.

Only when the unifying concept located at the point of the capstone is established can active concepts build up new domains of knowledge.

Adaptation and Evolution

Adaptation is an equalizing response; adapting is a response which creates equilibrium between two objects.

Adaptation is the appropriate response to environmental demands.

Adaptation of a subjective being is the appropriate response to proximate objective demands imposed by the given context.

The necessities, struggles, and demands original to a context does not guarantee adaptation. If the subjective being is perfectly adapted to its environment– the objective demands of its context–, appropriate responses will occur fluidly and seamlessly.

Energy must be supplied to a system to produce change.

If a subjective being is produced by the context, it is perfectly adapted. Wherever energy is highest, adaptation is fastest. Potential energy allows for future adaptation.

Concepts allow for adaptation by producing appropriate responses to changing demands.

Access to concepts and active reflection is imperative to adaptation.

Concepts without reflection cause functional fixation because they only consider the concepts—and the context in which they were generated— presently occupying the consciousness, which is incompatible with the demands of the current context.

Some personalities possess a chronic struggle which produces creative thoughts and solutions: madness of creative genius, anxiety, bipolar, depression, and the like.