The laws of thermodynamics, by and large, cannot be changed. The laws of an economy are completely fabricated, and can and should be altered whenever it suits the greater good.

one of my favorite homerisms. +1

LasersHurt: The laws of thermodynamics, by and large, cannot be changed. The laws of an economy are completely fabricated, and can and should be altered whenever it suits the greater good.

Economics is nothing more or less than the study of human interactions. To say that there are no set "laws" or economics is to deny that humans interact with each other in predictable ways. To imply that economic laws can simply be reshaped into whatever else you want them to be is to imply that human nature itself is so maleable that it can be reshaped into whatever you want.

Josiah Willard Gibbs is a vastly under-appreciated genius. His contributions to thermodynamics cannot be over-emphasized.

/Also, a shout out to Osborne Reynolds.
//Great men, all.

Talondel: LasersHurt: The laws of thermodynamics, by and large, cannot be changed. The laws of an economy are completely fabricated, and can and should be altered whenever it suits the greater good.

Economics is nothing more or less than the study of human interactions. To say that there are no set "laws" or economics is to deny that humans interact with each other in predictable ways. To imply that economic laws can simply be reshaped into whatever else you want them to be is to imply that human nature itself is so malleable that it can be reshaped into whatever you want.

And it can be, using the right diseases or conditioning you can get a person to believe just about anything. If you want proof just look in the politics tab.

LasersHurt: The laws of thermodynamics, by and large, cannot be changed. The laws of an economy are completely fabricated, and can and should be altered whenever it suits the greater good.


MONIAC begs to differ.

You mean economics is the study of the production, distribution and consumption of goods, services and resources? You don't say?

/Interesting.
//Guess I'll have to pursue my physics degree as well.

Talondel: LasersHurt: The laws of thermodynamics, by and large, cannot be changed. The laws of an economy are completely fabricated, and can and should be altered whenever it suits the greater good.

Economics is nothing more or less than the study of human interactions. To say that there are no set "laws" or economics is to deny that humans interact with each other in predictable ways. To imply that economic laws can simply be reshaped into whatever else you want them to be is to imply that human nature itself is so maleable that it can be reshaped into whatever you want.


"humans interact with each other in predictable ways" != "set "laws""

To couch this in the false mantle of a "law" is to falsely assume a completely deterministic, inevitable, homogenous and universal set of relations. We can of course look at the way people interact in this particular context and explore trends, but to attribute those interactions to an underlying "law" really oversimplifies those interactions.

Smokey, this is not string theory. This is thermodynamics. There are rules.

Ouch, TFA spelled Binghamton wrong. No love for my school!

Theaetetus: LasersHurt: The laws of thermodynamics, by and large, cannot be changed. The laws of an economy are completely fabricated, and can and should be altered whenever it suits the greater good.

MONIAC begs to differ.

The MONIAC machine actually makes his point. It was only a computer model, no different from any other computer models that economists use today.

Oh, I forgot to add that the MONIAC machine is pretty doggone cool, nonetheless.

Damnhippyfreak: "humans interact with each other in predictable ways" != "set "laws""

I don't understand why some people have a hard time accepting that the "soft" sciences produce deterministic results in much the same way that the hard sciences do.

Subatomic particles interact with each other in predictable ways. Yet despite this we cannot predict how any one subatomic particle will act with any reliability (we even have a "law" that notes this). Still, we understand the interactions between particles well enough that we can say with a great deal of confidence and accuracy how large numbers of those particles with intereact with each other over time.

For example, we cannot predict with any reliability when any one radioactive isotope will decay. However, if you get a mole of that isotope together we can tell you almost exactly how long it will take for half of them to decay.

Economics and the social sciences are largely the same. Economics cannot predict how any one person will act. It can however predict how groups of people will react with a great deal of accuracy. Enough accuracy that people can and do make decsions based on those economic "laws" without have to understand the underlying interactions between each individual person.

Are economic laws and a physical laws the same? No. Are they analagous enough for a discussion of their similarities to be useful? Yes.

... I don't get it. The economy just keeps going faster and faster!

Talondel: Damnhippyfreak: "humans interact with each other in predictable ways" != "set "laws""

I don't understand why some people have a hard time accepting that the "soft" sciences produce deterministic results in much the same way that the hard sciences do.

Subatomic particles interact with each other in predictable ways. Yet despite this we cannot predict how any one subatomic particle will act with any reliability (we even have a "law" that notes this). Still, we understand the interactions between particles well enough that we can say with a great deal of confidence and accuracy how large numbers of those particles with intereact with each other over time.

For example, we cannot predict with any reliability when any one radioactive isotope will decay. However, if you get a mole of that isotope together we can tell you almost exactly how long it will take for half of them to decay.

Economics and the social sciences are largely the same. Economics cannot predict how any one person will act. It can however predict how groups of people will react with a great deal of accuracy. Enough accuracy that people can and do make decsions based on those economic "laws" without have to understand the underlying interactions between each individual person.

Are economic laws and a physical laws the same? No. Are they analagous enough for a discussion of their similarities to be useful? Yes.

The difference is that subatomic particles are not intelligent beings who are looking at the system they are involved in and trying to tinker with it.

Trying to predict what's going to happen in the stock market, or any market, is going to probably be impossible, due to the fact that the people involved in making the markets move up and down are all studying the overall situation and are all trying to predict what everyone else will do so they can do it first.

If you create a cool new model of markets that no one has thought of before which predicts what markets will do, everyone involved finds out about it and tries to apply the model, and the model stops working.

I love the ads, btw:

How to make electricity - $198 shocking new homeowner's kit has Power Co execs red in the face - www.Power4Home.com

Free Energy - How to Build a Magnetic Power Generator & Get Free Electricity. - FreeEnergy-FreeElectricity.com

Laws of thermodynamics? Not in my internets!

More of the usual pseudo-scientific dribble, people building careers out of silly literal application of what are amusing parallels but nothing more.

This is no more sensible than people who think information theory or thermodynamic laws can be applied to biology because some processes look a but like physical processes if you squint in a poor light.

LasersHurt: The laws of thermodynamics, by and large, cannot be changed. The laws of an economy are completely fabricated, and can and should be altered whenever it suits the greater good.

You're confusing the social structures of an economy (the specific forms of which, yes, are accidents of evolutionary history) with the underlying laws that govern them (which are macroscopic manifestations of the underlying microscopic principles, usually expressed in stochastic form).

Talondel: I don't understand why some people have a hard time accepting that the "soft" sciences produce deterministic results in much the same way that the hard sciences do.

Well, despite the basic foundation....



...at lower levels of purity, too many hand-waving English majors creep in like cockroaches.

Talondel: Are economic laws and a physical laws the same? No.

Errr... actually, the point of TFA (and XKCD above) is in part to suggest that the underlying laws of social sciences such as economics are manifestations of the laws of physics.

So let me see if I got this, the government is the compressor that prints the money into the condenser, the excess dollars are radiated out and consumed by the ambient citizen. the dollars then leave the condenser and travel to the evaporator via the liquidation line.They then hit the special interest valve and using the heat generated by the average worker, boil into a gas and are evaporated.The water dripping out of the condensate drain is sweat and tears. Whatever money is left is returned to the compressor via the sucsometaxes line. viola!

gaspode: This is no more sensible than people who think information theory or thermodynamic laws can be applied to biology

More exactly, biology is an application of thermodynamic laws.

"Natural selection for least action", Kaila and Annila (doi:10.1098/rspa.2008.0178)
"Minimal self-replicating systems", Robertson et al (doi:10.1039/a803602k)
"Prevolutionary dynamics and the origin of evolution", Nowak and Ohtsuki (doi:10.1073/pnas.0806714105)
"Prelife catalysts and replicators", Nowak and Ohtsuki (doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1136)
"Self-Sustained Replication of an RNA Enzyme", Lincoln and Joyce (doi:10.1126/science.1167856)
"A hierarchical model for evolution of 23S ribosomal RNA", Bokov and Steinberg (doi:10.1038/nature07749)

DPSturm: So let me see if I got this

No, you don't. You're confusing money flow and energy flow; much like confusing money with utility, but worse.

Talondel: Damnhippyfreak: "humans interact with each other in predictable ways" != "set "laws""

I don't understand why some people have a hard time accepting that the "soft" sciences produce deterministic results in much the same way that the hard sciences do.

Subatomic particles interact with each other in predictable ways. Yet despite this we cannot predict how any one subatomic particle will act with any reliability (we even have a "law" that notes this). Still, we understand the interactions between particles well enough that we can say with a great deal of confidence and accuracy how large numbers of those particles with intereact with each other over time.

For example, we cannot predict with any reliability when any one radioactive isotope will decay. However, if you get a mole of that isotope together we can tell you almost exactly how long it will take for half of them to decay.

Economics and the social sciences are largely the same. Economics cannot predict how any one person will act. It can however predict how groups of people will react with a great deal of accuracy. Enough accuracy that people can and do make decsions based on those economic "laws" without have to understand the underlying interactions between each individual person.

Are economic laws and a physical laws the same? No. Are they analagous enough for a discussion of their similarities to be useful? Yes.


Hm. Maybe you missed the bulk of my criticism:

Damnhippyfreak: To couch this in the false mantle of a "law" is to falsely assume a completely deterministic, inevitable, homogenous and universal set of relations.

Of course we can talk about the trends and the underlying causes for patterns, but to ascribe those trends, to again, a deterministic, inevitable, homogenous, and universal set of "laws" is to oversimplify things. People are not particles - we can explore trends and the reasons for them, but to state those reasons are somehow unmutable, universal "laws" hides a huge amount of assumptions.

If there's a lesson to be learnt from the observation that "economics and the social sciences are largely the same", it's that the social sciences have largely moved away from purely structural, deterministic views. I strongly urge you to apply the actual insights derived from those disciplines to what you are claiming.

Not bad, but not as powerful as my own formulation of macroeconomics as a being similar General Relativity. Loosely put, markets tell actors how to move, and actors tell markets how to curve.

Formulating the right Ricci tensor is trickier than in GR because a given market generally has many more dimensions than the (3,1) of Riemannian spacetime, but after that it's just a matter or calculation.

/I have a wonderful proof of this, but it's too long to fit in this slashie.

beelzebubba76: Josiah Willard Gibbs is a vastly under-appreciated genius. His contributions to thermodynamics cannot be over-emphasized.

/Also, a shout out to Osborne Reynolds.
//Great men, all.

Gibbs got his spot in my thermodynamics course.

czetie: Not bad, but not as powerful as my own formulation of macroeconomics as a being similar General Relativity. Loosely put, markets tell actors how to move, and actors tell markets how to curve.

Formulating the right Ricci tensor is trickier than in GR because a given market generally has many more dimensions than the (3,1) of Riemannian spacetime, but after that it's just a matter or calculation.

/I have a wonderful proof of this, but it's too long to fit in this slashie.

Now I have hilarious images of a Ricci tensor attacking an economist.

/I guess Christoffel symbols represent each company ;)

abb3w: LasersHurt: The laws of thermodynamics, by and large, cannot be changed. The laws of an economy are completely fabricated, and can and should be altered whenever it suits the greater good.

You're confusing the social structures of an economy (the specific forms of which, yes, are accidents of evolutionary history) with the underlying laws that govern them (which are macroscopic manifestations of the underlying microscopic principles, usually expressed in stochastic form).

Talondel: I don't understand why some people have a hard time accepting that the "soft" sciences produce deterministic results in much the same way that the hard sciences do.

Well, despite the basic foundation....



...at lower levels of purity, too many hand-waving English majors creep in like cockroaches.

Talondel: Are economic laws and a physical laws the same? No.

Errr... actually, the point of TFA (and XKCD above) is in part to suggest that the underlying laws of social sciences such as economics are manifestations of the laws of physics.


To be fair, the actual paper shows quite a bit more nuance than this, and the authors explicitly speak against a simple reading of their work as such:

"Yet, our objective is not to turn economics into physics, but to clarify economic activity in the context of the 2nd law, which accounts for all irreversible motions in nature. " (p.608)

This is thermoeconomics. (new window)

Nobody likes thermoeconomics because its implications are a little scary.

Damnhippyfreak: To be fair, the actual paper shows quite a bit more nuance than this, and the authors explicitly speak against a simple reading of their work as such:

"Yet, our objective is not to turn economics into physics, but to clarify economic activity in the context of the 2nd law, which accounts for all irreversible motions in nature. " (p.608)


Whoh. I really phrased that wrong. You got it much, much closer to the intention of the authors referred to in TFA, XKCD, on the other hand, much less so. You have to take the paper with the caveat that it works within hierarchy theory, something they briefly mention but don't get into all that much - lower levels of organization and the principles therein inform higher levels, but not in a purely bottom-up, deterministic fashion. "Manifestations of", sure, and providing basic organizing principles, but shaped and controlled by higher levels. Whatever "laws" of social sciences exist (and I'm not convinced they do) are not purely attributable to physical laws - hierarchy theory presents a framework that does not priviledge a particular level of organization.

But nevertheless, incredibly poorly worded on my part. My apologies.

canyoneer: This is thermoeconomics. (new window)

Nobody likes thermoeconomics because its implications are a little scary.


Of course, you have to differentiate between a normative versus a positive reading of it.

I guess the ads don't have to follow them laws though... Pretty funny google adwords ad, sitting right in the middle of the article:


Ads by Google

Free Energy - How to Build a Magnetic Power Generator & Get Free Electricity. - FreeEnergy-FreeElectricity.com

czetie: Not bad, but not as powerful as my own formulation of macroeconomics as a being similar General Relativity. Loosely put, markets tell actors how to move, and actors tell markets how to curve.

Formulating the right Ricci tensor is trickier than in GR because a given market generally has many more dimensions than the (3,1) of Riemannian spacetime, but after that it's just a matter or calculation.

/I have a wonderful proof of this, but it's too long to fit in this slashie.

That only works if all actors react to the market in the same way (economic analogue to the equivalence principal). Otherwise, putting it in terms of differential geometry just makes things more complicated. Which, of course, may be the intent ;)

SpikesCafe: Ouch, TFA spelled Binghamton wrong. No love for my school!

They probably think it's on Long Island. And if you walked through Dickinson Dining Hall, you'd swear you were in the food court at the Smithtown mall.

DrJesusPhD: Otherwise, putting it in terms of differential geometry just makes things more complicated. Which, of course, may be the intent ;)

As somebody pointed out above, if too many people understand the model, the model no longer works ;)

/See also "Second Foundation", Isaac Asimov

OnmyojiOmn: Smokey, this is not string theory. This is thermodynamics. There are rules.

HA!
Zing!

Remember boys and girls, you can't push a rope.

/ Unless you wet it and freeze it
// In which case, you're pushing ice which is pulling a rope
/// so not even then, really

TypoFlyspray: Remember boys and girls, you can't push a rope.

/ Unless you wet it and freeze it
// In which case, you're pushing ice which is pulling a rope
/// so not even then, really

What of you rolled the rope up into a ball?

Telos: TypoFlyspray: Remember boys and girls, you can't push a rope.

/ Unless you wet it and freeze it
// In which case, you're pushing ice which is pulling a rope
/// so not even then, really

What of you rolled the rope up into a ball?

What if you are pushing it down a tube?

TypoFlyspray: Remember boys and girls, you can't push a rope.

/ Unless you wet it and freeze it
// In which case, you're pushing ice which is pulling a rope
/// so not even then, really

You can if you do it fast enough, to a short rope, or with long enough arms.

abb3w: gaspode: This is no more sensible than people who think information theory or thermodynamic laws can be applied to biology

More exactly, biology is an application of thermodynamic laws.



Biological processes, like every other kind of process, are subject to the laws of thermodynamics (insert disclaimer about quantum theory etc). However the connection is at an immensely abstracted level. One could even suggest that economics is subject to those laws in as much as each real world element contributing to economics is subject to them. However thats a spurious and frivolous point.

This connection has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of stupid talk one hears about evolution and the second law, or information theory and DNA etc. Or this article.

TypoFlyspray: Remember boys and girls, you can't push a rope.

/ Unless you wet it and freeze it
// In which case, you're pushing ice which is pulling a rope
/// so not even then, really

If the rope were woven to have an outer casing like a chinese finger trap you could.

Damnhippyfreak: You got it much, much closer to the intention of the authors referred to in TFA, XKCD, on the other hand, much less so.

The XKCD is only vaguely related; nonetheless, worth keeping in mind.

gaspode: However thats a spurious and frivolous point.

No. Macroscopic phenomena result from microscopic phenomena. EG: energy flows in a system.

The problem isn't the people who try applying information theory or thermodynamic laws, it's the people who do sloppy math in the application.

The authors of the paper are not too sloppy. (And TFA author? Eh....)

gaspode: This connection has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of stupid talk one hears about evolution and the second law, or information theory and DNA etc. Or this article.

Nothing whatsoever? You might want to look closer at that first DOI reference I pointed at. And the DOI reference from TFA.

And then the author list of each.

SpikesCafe: Ouch, TFA spelled Binghamton wrong. No love for my school!

I failed out of Binghamton but I still noticed the spelling.

abb3w: Damnhippyfreak: You got it much, much closer to the intention of the authors referred to in TFA, XKCD, on the other hand, much less so.

The XKCD is only vaguely related; nonetheless, worth keeping in mind.

gaspode: However thats a spurious and frivolous point.

No. Macroscopic phenomena result from microscopic phenomena. EG: energy flows in a system.

The problem isn't the people who try applying information theory or thermodynamic laws, it's the people who do sloppy math in the application.

The authors of the paper are not too sloppy. (And TFA author? Eh....)

gaspode: This connection has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of stupid talk one hears about evolution and the second law, or information theory and DNA etc. Or this article.

Nothing whatsoever? You might want to look closer at that first DOI reference I pointed at. And the DOI reference from TFA.

And then the author list of each.

I didnt read your links. Sorry. Not a day for extensive reading. Obviously assessing the macroscopic effects of microscopic phenomena IS valuable and interesting, in fact its fundamental.. but analogy based stuff which is all economics comparisons can ever be are stupid.

Something that can be summarised as 'patterns in economies look a bit like some patterns in physics so lets do a lot of stuff based on assuming that means something' is retarded.

Energy flows for instance have many applications in physics and chemistry, even in astronomy or fluids such as astronomy, but is far far too easy to apply where it has no relevance (e.g. entropy applied to evolution)

The sentence 'Now, scientists Arto Annila of the University of Helsinki and Stanley Salthe of Binghampton University in New York show that economic activity can be regarded as an evolutionary process governed by the second law of thermodynamics.' Is a joke.

"energy is dispersed in a way to promote the maximal increase of entropy" IN AN ISOLATED SYSTEM. And only in an isolated system. In any non isolated system the system referred to is therefore the universe.

It could be that an economic system result that from an economics point of view appears to have a lower entropy has, in physical terms, produced in the universe a higher entropy, which is the ONLY thing the law concerns.

All that's happening in this "modern" economy are people padding their nests before a serious economic collapse. A bunch of positioned filth request control of x amount of funds in an entirely uncompetitive environment. They do this hoping that no one comes to find them and murder them. It's a roll of the dice with good odds.

gaspode: but analogy based stuff which is all economics comparisons can ever be are stupid.

Analogy based, yes. This, however, is not working by similie, nor even metaphor. The paper in question is taking the thermodynamic equations, and working out some of the macroscale effects.

gaspode: Energy flows for instance have many applications in physics and chemistry, even in astronomy or fluids such as astronomy, but is far far too easy to apply where it has no relevance (e.g. entropy applied to evolution)

Umm.... no, check that first DOI link. The second law equation for two thermodynamic systems connected by mass/energy flow gives rise to the fundamental mechanism of natural selection. This is part of why you can still have natural selection in an abiotic environment, allowing prevolutionary development leading to biogenic transition.

gaspode: "energy is dispersed in a way to promote the maximal increase of entropy" IN AN ISOLATED SYSTEM.

The mass-energy flow does provide an additional term for open systems, but I'm fairly certain the maximal dispersal isn't just isolated systems, since....

gaspode: It could be that an economic system result that from an economics point of view appears to have a lower entropy has, in physical terms, produced in the universe a higher entropy, which is the ONLY thing the law concerns.

That's the only thing the law concerns in systems that are isolated and nearly homogeneous.

However, there is an open-system expression of the second law, which includes that term for the entropy associated with the mass-energy flow across the system boundary; and any isolated system may be arbitrarily divided into two subsystems connected by a mass-energy flow, with the open-system expression of the second law holding to either system and the flow. So, the second law not only dictates that entropy will tend to increase overall, but in non-homogeneous systems indicate where and how it will increase.

Telos: What of you rolled the rope up into a ball?

Mr Logo: What if you are pushing it down a tube?

sip111: You can if you do it fast enough, to a short rope, or with long enough arms.

Uchiha_Cycliste: If the rope were woven to have an outer casing like a chinese finger trap you could.

God I love this place! Y'all are nearly as disagreeable as I am.