Steering humanity\'s growth by John C Hodge

John Merryman

JH,

In some ways, we are still in the tail end of a hundreds year long process of transitioning from a direct precious metals based currency to a certificate of deposit(gold, grain, etc) based currency.

Now, rather than greasing the process of trading goods, etc, most trading, value wise, is of currencies themselves. I think this really got started after the seventies and was the real basis of Reaganomics. Volcker is credited with curing inflation by raising interest rates, but higher rates penalize those wishing to borrow money and reward those with money to lend. Since inflation is presumably due to excess money already in the system, this seems counter-intuitive, even though the higher rates were in part due to money being pulled back out of the economy by the Fed selling debt it bought to create the money in the first place.

Now ask yourself, wouldn't the Treasury issuing lots of new debt, as it was doing in the early 80's, have the same effect as the Fed selling debt, especially since the Treasury was issuing far more new debt than the Fed was selling?

It leads me to suspect inflation was largely cured with extra government debt, then higher rates. Especially since the higher rates went in by '78 and Volcker tried lowering them in 79-80, but inflation came back and it was only in '82, by which time the government was running a 200 billion dollar deficit.

So a lot of the economic growth of the past thirty years was fueled by increasing amounts of debt. Everything from wars to healthcare is being put on this tab. Is it because politicians have no spine, or because the bankers pay them to keep the public tab running? It is not as though this debt was the basis of all the growth, but it did provide a carrot for many people. So long as people just kept folding old debt into new debt, it works... The idea is how to get people motivated honestly and not with growing piles of ultimately unfulfillable promises.

Regards,

John Hodge

I think I'm beginning to see our difference. Reading between the lines, I think you are following the Keynesian derived doctrine (political/government). As the essay suggests, the Keynesian derived doctrine predictions have not only failed, the opposite of their forecasts has happened. I have limited understanding of economics, but I can recognize Friedman's predictions were correct. Therefore, I think his model (monetarists) is the better model. I argue this without real economic understanding, but based of the science that the model that predicts is better regardless of how weird it sounds.

I suggest your next step should be to get Free to Choose. It is a book and a 10 part TV series (DVD) (comes in 2 series - the first/older is much better, the second is nearly worthless). The end of each segment has his opponents asking questions and making statements with Friedman replying. As near as I can tell, everything you are addressing is in the series. You may know more than I at the end of the series as you have a real interest in the subject. BTW part of Friedman's solution was to abolish the Federal Reserve.

Tommaso Bolognesi

Dear John,

I appreciate the nice remarks of political-historical nature in the first part of your essay. I also agree with your remark that: Humans lack sufficient knowledge to predict outcomes of actions. Therefore, a trial-and-error method must be adopted.

I confess that I have more difficulty in following the line of reasoning in Section 2 (The fundamental principles of humanity that apply to physics).

Perhaps due to space limitations, you present interesting facts, but I did not manage to grasp the final message you wanted to give here, other than the observation that life absorbs more free energy and produces more entropy (in order to keep itself ordered) than non-living matter.

In particular, I did not understand the issue: `The fractal universe philosophy should be promoted to a fundamental principle. That is, the universe is a collection of reproduced mechanisms`. Did you mean that the mechanism of self-reproduction is at work not only at the level of the biosphere, but also at lower levels (inanimate matter, or even the spacetime texture), as well as at galactic scales? Or are you perhaps referring to the controversial work of Laurent Nottale (Scale Relativity and Fractal Spacetime)?

Any serious attempt to unify or at least to find similarities between the laws of the biosphere and those of physics deserves the highest attention, in my opinion. Lee Smolin s `The Life of the Cosmos` is a good example. Another example, in a completely different direction, is provided by Teilhard de Chardin s `The Human Phenomenon`.

Any clarification on the essential message that you wanted to convey with this section is welcome. And good luck with the Contest.

John Hodge

Thanks very much for your comment. This essay is at the limit of my thinking. I see no reason to regurgatate establish ideas of others. Rather, the attempt is to combine thoughts/models.

"I confess that I have more difficulty in following the line of reasoning in Section 2 (The fundamental principles of humanity that apply to physics)." The idea behind the essay was that life (biosphere) is a part of our universe. Postulate of the essay: whatever the fundamental principles of the universe are, life must be operating on those principles. Therefore, the observations of life such as natural selection must apply to the study of physics. You noted Lee Somlin's book. The problem is how do we interpret the processes of life into physics? The interpretation of life by biologists may not yield fundamental principles as physics uses them. Section 2 is more of a set of examples following this premise rather that a line of reasoning within itself. Each paragraph starts with "this is biologists view" and follows with this is a way for physics to view the observation. The listed principle additions are my suggestions for physics. Certainly, these are outside the box of today's orthodoxy. Further, I'm only starting to think along these lines. Please share your thoughts.

"In particular, I did not understand the issue: `The fractal universe philosophy should be promoted to a fundamental principle. That is, the universe is a collection of reproduced mechanisms`. Did you mean that the mechanism of self-reproduction is at work not only at the level of the biosphere, but also at lower levels (inanimate matter, or even the spacetime texture), as well as at galactic scales?" Yes. I mean no. Well, kinda. "Reproduction" is a biological term. The paragraph on change suggests making the same structure such as a sun may be done is several ways. The universe makes copies. Suns are made by similar means guided by the same principles. But this is not self-reproduction. Self-reproduction is another change method. We should not rule out self-reproduction as a means of making copies in physics at any scale. The principle is change. This leads to the discussion on self-similarity as in fractals.

Or are you perhaps referring to the controversial work of Laurent Nottale (Scale Relativity and Fractal Spacetime)? Again, kinda. Certainly, it seems there must be a limit on bigness and smallness. Nottale suggests this limit is approached (mathematically) the same as the speed of light by some form of Lorentz transforms. Scale relativity concerns the ability of the physics to do differentiation as a mathematical tool. I suggest the assumptions of differentiability totally fail at smaller dimensions. That is, math calls this breakdown a "singularity". The math operation of division become questionable unless a truly continues medium is concerned - my plenum- but not particles. Instead, I propose (way outside the scope of this essay but I'll burden you with it anyway.) that we have to change our model of the fundamental physical constituents of our universe and of how they interact. Then we have to derive how they produce the observations on our scale and the cosmological scale. Scale relativity as a model is closely related to self-similarity but starts from the large scale. For example, this is going to get into a discussion of the derivation of the Lorentz equations, why the speed of light is a limit ("What characteristic of light that gives it the speed limit?" is my question. Nottale merely accepts it.), and how can we derive from these characteristics the observations such as diffraction and light momentum. My paper STOE correspondence to general relativity and quantum mechanics shows my current model.

The concept of fractal is more than just self-similarity, but also the idea of a detailed pattern repeating itself. Therefore, perhaps the idea of complexity in life can be applied to the size of the various scales. Perhaps the size of scales is discrete - I think Nottale considers the scale continuous.

John Merryman

John H,

If there is one thing I've learned in life, it's not to listen to what the powers that be say, but watch what they do. Presumptive monetarists have been running the Fed since Volcker and yet they keep using Keynsianism to keep the wheels from falling off. Why? Everyone says it is because the government can't control its spending, so it has to keep borrowing. There are two sides to that relationship though, the spending and the borrowing. It is safe to say the real powers in this country are the ones doing the lending, while the spending is for things like welfare and warfare. So with a little logic, it might be reasonable to consider that what is driving this is the need to keep borrowing those piles of surplus wealth, in order to maintain their value. Now you are not going to find expensive books and well publicized treatises telling you this, because those with the money to put out that kind of material would prefer you not think in those terms. As I keep saying, this isn't going to stop until it all blows up, so you don't have to believe anything I say and are welcome to read whatever you want, but don't say you were not warned that it's all politics, not logic.

Regards,

John M

James Hoover

John,

Interesting read. I agree that the "Theory of Everything" should include life and our social organization, but I'm not sure how that is accomplished. You speak of organizing to preclude war while allowing competition and change, which is sound advice. You suggest a sort of "states rights." Our history has many theories which proclaim natural rights and natural laws but its application always seem vague and/or ambiguous.

What do you think?

Jim

John Hodge

JLH

I was suggesting the accomplishment of inclusion is by the idea that the fundamental principles should correspond to cosmology, quantum mechanics and life. The suggestions for a beginning were in sections 2 and 3. STOE correspondence to general relativity and quantum mechanics and develop this idea a little. STOE application to life. There is a long way to go.

The "states rights" I was suggesting for a constitution similar to the constitution of 1789 (without the individual laws added later). That is, they are laws in a constitution.

I agree, the "natural rights" and "natural laws" are vague because people claim a right when it is only their idealism. That is, these people are claiming a "natural rights" and "natural laws" to support their vague idealism where no real right or law exists. People's idealism must be turned into concrete laws. The barons showed the idealism must be turned into a law that a court can adjudicate and revolutionized humanities organizing methods. We must form a nation.

What do you think? What principles unite life with physics?

James Hoover

John,

You're right about claiming natural law to further agenda. Conservatives now claim the "invisible hand" justifies greed while Adam Smith wanted benefits for all through an "invisible hand."

Time grows short, so I am revisited those I've read to assure I've rated them. I find that I rated yours on 5/20. Hope you enjoyed mine.

Jim

John Merryman

Sorry about that! Too many Johns.

Wilhelmus de Wilde

Dear John :

You stated that "each difference of view" leads to war...

At our age we become aware that a difference of view, mentality or whatever is always leading to discussion, if you would call that war ....

Of course any discussion can lead ultimately to war if one part of the object of discussion is becoming the conviction of a group, and the other part is becoming the conviction of another group...

So mankind has as many "convictions" as there are individuals (7 billion) so we are at the threshold of 7 billion wars...

At the other side it si "L'Unité fait la force" as we see in science where different people are working with their own different ideas on the sma object to get a solution.

It is always the "duality" of mankind (man and woman) that is the origin of getting forward (man and woman together create children) like it is in wars that w make the most of new inventions (weapons).

So our future will indeed always be directed by differences of opinion , leading to one side aggressive actions and on the other side new scientific advances (that can lead indeed again to new weapons...)

So the procreation at one side leads to annihilation at the other side...

IF we would be able to change our mentality...which means that our consciousness may become aware of the positive side of ambiguous being and appreciate its values not only for the differences we will be able to move on without the wars of economy...

I hope that you can spare some time to read and maybe comment my essay "STEERING THE FUTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS" and eventually give it a rating too.

If you comment on my thread I will answer on yours , this is easy because we will be both warned when a post comes in...

best regards

Wilhelmus

John Hodge

1st response:

Where did I say "...'each difference of view' leads to war..."?

I did say, "Competition must be allowed between religions, between approaches to technology, and between approaches to the environment." in the paper and "The room for different views may be had if the views include tolerance for other views (as the rise from tribes to chiefdoms suggests) and include the cooperation with the different views." in a reply.

Hodge

Hasmukh Tank

Dear John,

Yes, those papers, on alternative interpretations of the cosmological red shift, and alternative view of unverse expansion, are written by me. I shall be happy to receive your valuable comments. My e-mail-address is written in the papers.

With my best regards,

Hasmukh K. Tank

Gbenga Ogungbuyi

Fellow Comrade,

I have respond to your questions on my wall. Your article was entertaining and interesting.

Keep the it up!

Thanks

Sabine Hossenfelder

John,

An interesting essay, you are picking up many good points. You might find Homer-Dixon's book "The Upside of Down" interesting. He argues that civilizations collapse due to the inability to generate enough energy to support their high level of complexity. This is of course over-simplistic if you look at the details but I think the underlying idea has much truth to it. Best,

Sabine

John Hodge

Sabine

Thank you so much for your note. Now I see your comment "No, the major challenge,..., is to convert these ideas into action."

I have "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization" but have only scanned it. The same with his "Environment, Scarcity, and Violence". I omitted a reference to them because he makes things a bit more complex than they are, in my opinion. That is why I went with Tainter. For example, I agree with Friedman that the Federal Reserve was a big mistake. I suppose he would call me a "neo-Malthusisn". I did like his stages of denial, some of his income gap comments, and the chapter of "why don't we face reality". You can see examples of the latter in these essays.

All his tectonic stresses and conditions in Tainter are present today and have been for a long time. The limited space left me with commenting, "However, the collapse is a failure of the society's organization to adapt to nature and to the changing conditions." That is, he is only describing some of the natural conditions imposed on humanity all th time.

Let me take this opportunity to address another idea I think you are tending toward. Almost all the essays have suggestions with little chance of happening. My last comment "The barons are organizing." suggest the required action is already happening. Look at the conditions that forced the barons to action. They are all present in the US today. Many today are already taking action toward a thing like the Magna Carta that I suggest is a new constitution. The TEA party (they want a smaller Federal Government) is becoming stronger. The secession movement is small but growing. Many are writing books and article s suggesting constitutional amendments (Friedman, M. R. Levin, R. E. Barnet, etc.). The path toward the kind of constitutional change is already happening. I hope the leaders of today are as smart as the leaders in 1787.

James Dunn

John,

How does corruption fit into your national organization?

Corruption is actionably defined as: unethical allocation, or

in legal consideration, illegal allocation

abuse of allocation typically involves resources and/or opportunities

Corruption acts on opportunities quickly and then entrenches itself to prevent fair access to resources and/or opportunities.

In a natural state, anyone not born into a affluent family is to be denied access to all opportunities except those that are offered to them by affluent families. This is slave labor and indenturement.

The natural tendency to fight against oppression is war.

James Dunn

Iran is different than most countries that fight against oppression. Typically groups of the oppressed would start killing off the families of the oppressors. In Iran, the mafia government kills and maims families that speak against the government. Most recently, 300 young men were blinded because they spoke out against the government diverting the river to supply another city where a governor had family. The agricultural area is drying up as the river fed aquifers are emptied.

The people of Iran have been making slow, unarmed changes at great personal expense. But they have had a long history of being occupied. The British, the French, and now Saudi Arabia backed Iranian thugs.

Many billions are stolen out of the Iranian taxes, and the Government officials steal on an on-going bases. The intellectual people have learned to fight oppression through integration. The oppressed families eventually have representatives within the families of the oppressors. Fighting corruption is done from inside the oppressor's families.

Eventually, oppressors are replaced by people who want economic prosperity fostered by ethical collaboration. They want to live in a safe society, not fearing for their family's lives.

But it takes time to oust self-serving people that have low regard for anyone else, including themselves and their family.

Some are forced into corruption as a means to make changes slowly. Over time they support their family, and make incremental improvements for their country.

The Iranian people have never raised weapons against its oppressors. As a result, the government had to create a mafia militia to do its dirty work because the formal military refuses to attack its own people.

Many hundreds of thousands of Iranian people have lost their lives in fighting oppression. But this has been an alternative to war.

John Hodge

James

I presume you are talking about if this essay's suggestion is adopted. The problem is war between states that is very destructive. Note the nation constitution is not cast in stone in my mind. But I think the military command belongs in the nation (Federal) control. So the state pays the nation government to keep that military. The military is used to prevent war between states or at least side with the defender. So the offender must pay for the national military and his own - a very untenable position.

I also propose the nation is out of the welfare, housing, food provision, etc. business. The state is responsible for these individual relation things. So how much can a state spend on military if it has to take care of its people? Look at international affairs now. The violent groups in Africa and mideast are getting food supplies (humanitarian aid) from the US. This allows them as a society to buy guns that are used to further war against their neighbors and population. Suppose they were not getting humanitarian aid, would they care for their people? I think probably not in which case their support would either move or die. If they do care for their own, they would not be buying guns. Either way, the practice would end. Would the human cost including war be greater or lesser to cease the humanitarian aid. I think less - a lot less.

I seems you are talking of civil war - within a state. I suggest that is states business. I look at the panorama of slavery in the US. We can see the whole thing play out over 200 years. The idea of the Federal interfering inside the state was the whole issue. First the Southern states wanted slaves returned from northern states and got the Federal government to issue laws to Northern states. Then the Southern states left the union and a large civil war between states erupted (lots left out - but this must be short).

If a state wants to spend a large portion of its budget in corruption and oppressive measures, let it. It will soon fail as businesses and people flee. Perhaps some people would want to go and help the oppressed. But the other states and the Federal government must not. It takes only a small percentage of people to flee to cause major problems for a state. Today, the problem is the state gets outside help which props up the corrupt. Example, Pakastan and other mideast countries receive a great deal of aid from the US.

Iran is no exception. Remember the history. The US supported the corruption (the Shah) for decades. The people arose and ejected the US. Later, when the new government proved no better, the US helped the government fight against the rebels - the US supported the corruption. If we had not done that, the Iranian government would be friendlier now decades later. We supported the oppression for decades.

Now, the Iranian people are in a pickle. They may flee with difficulty. Business may not invest. The government is continuing to get aid despite the embargo. Of course, the reaction of the US to the breakdown of the social structure as a result of the embargo has been shameful.

How long can the Iranian government survive without the outside aid?

I'm sure that many of the suggested states will have policies that some individuals will find objectionable. But if we have learned nothing else from Britian and France from 300 years ago, we should learn that interference in another's affairs is expensive, futile, and the results are opposite to those intended. The US wanted trading partners in the mideast, we financed oppressors, we are draining our treasure, and we reaped hatred and war.

Yes. It takes time once the bad has been supported and grown. Better to let the bad die early rather than be propped up.

Thanks for your comment.

murat gaisin

Dear John C Hadge,

I like the general approach to the problems of physics. I do not fully agree with the author. Nevertheless, an interesting article.

Regards,

Murat Asgatovich Gaisin

Wilhelmus de Wilde

Dear John,

I was rereading your essay and would like to make some remarks:

Religion gives a knowledge that cannot be proven, so it is not the scientific knowledge in my opinion.

The future may not give us a "theory" of EVERYTHING but an "understanding of how everything is interconnected, which does not mean that each part has the same "formula's" .

The current society is bound by "direct information" for every unit of the society, we can now organize loans for projects through "crowd funding" and the same goes for parties but also for decisions made by governments, so you could say that the influence of the individual at this side has grown but as we are now with so much the influence seems to diminish, so the balance maybe the same, I do not have numbers on that. But the collapse of societies is always ruled by its governors egoism , and this egoism is very soon exposed by the information techniques of today...

Through "dualism" reproduction is realized. Our whole reality is realized through this principle of heat an cold, plus and minus. We can ask ourselves how we will survive this short term (even billions of years are relatively short term) creation. In my essay : "STEERING THE FUTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS" i am trying to give indications of understanding and mastering these mega-times.

Indeed the morality of the individuals that are the components of our reality and that have always to struggle for survival because of the dualistic essence of this reality is THE important factor for the character of our society. The moral of "Eat or to be eaten" is not a positive approach but is strongly embedded in all forms of living (as you also mention).

Any new constitution is a result from a changing mentality...

So after a better read I must conclude that your opinion is valid but is of no use when we cannot change the human consciousness, and even find a way out of the "Eat or being Eaten" and within this structure of humanity, even with its total information technique this is a very hard thing...

So I hope that you can spare now some time like I did and read the solutions I am proposing.

all the best

Wilhelmus

John Hodge

"Religion gives a knowledge that cannot be proven, so it is not the scientific knowledge in my opinion."

Of course religion is not science. That is why I listed it separately in the first words of the essay. I'm not sure where you are going, but science is not really "proven" either. Hypotheses are either rejected or not rejected. Therefore, an observation may be not rejected by several models.

Religion offers morals for society. The success of religious knowledge is the long-term survival of its adherents. Religion offers hope. Whereas, science understanding offers predictability. Our science is weak on the predictability of social actions. I also offer the idea that if the social structure is weak, then the science doesn't help. Note the African tribes killing each other. The only thing stopping them from using the science of food production is their political instability. A society needs both morals and science.

The idea labeled the "Theory of Everything" is somewhat defined as to the problems it must solve. Is it a misnomer? You betcha. So?

"But the collapse of societies is always ruled by its governors egoism..." and the peoples support of that government. Very often the people and the society allow and even support the government.

Indeed the morality of the individuals that are the components of our reality and that have always to struggle for survival because of the dualistic essence of this reality is THE important factor for the character of our society." Agree. Note the comment on the African tribes above. They are tribes (Diamond's definition) fighting. We know a state (Diamond's definition) is possible. The science to better their position is known but unusable because of the limitations of a tribe structure.

"Any new constitution is a result from a changing mentality...". I disagree if you mean morality. The new constitution of 1789 did not require a different morality - It merely had to solve problems the larger structure was having. But there is an interesting point in this. The US revolution and following constitution was lead by barons - that is educated, rich, business leaders, etc. The French revolution in the same time frame was created by intellectuals and "common people". This is why I noted "baron" not people.

A change in human consciousness is unnecessary. But the change must be lead by practical leaders. This is what is developing. The barons are organizing.

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