Re: Interesting Take on Modeling

[Doyle Saylor <doylesaylor@xxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
On Feb 22, 2007, at 5:36 AM, Ted Winslow wrote:

> Keynes added to this the claim that the mistaken
> identification of "reason" with this kind of reasoning expressed
> obsessional psychopathology and so was largely immune to rational
> critique.

Doyle;
Obsession is especially hard to prove given that someone has to say
that they are obsessives.  Hence whatever else Keynes may have said
that is useful this is very shaky sort of speculation.  Obsession is no
doubt a range of behaviors, some more some less.  And it is not clear
it is a psychopathology.  It may be typical and normal of humans in
that most people exhibit some forms like habits in general one could
call 'obsessive'.  Rather what is being normalized is a 'theory of
emotions'.  If brain work or knowledge production is to be done in the
context of Keynes times, then people must respond emotionally to
'rational' knowledge in a set of exemplary responses we might call
flexibility, adjustment to evidence or whatever.

This assumes first of all that it is 'natural' to perform in mostly
economically defined circumstances of cognition per Keynes comment
which is a huge leap of faith about cognition in general.  Secondly
rationality itself is an odd sort of assumption about cognition as we
know it now.  It references 'conscious' word like thought.  Seemingly
detached from emotions.  Kuhn's work demonstrated that scientific
objectivity was subject to punctuated change as if a group was
emotionally rigid around a 'paradigm', which in itself sounds like a
symptom of obsession.

We don't understand flexibility.  Flexibility is most certainly not
rationality, but how the person uses their emotions to navigate all the
many confusing inputs of life.  Hence any sort of evaluation of
obsession or rational flexibility is subject to withering criticism
about a fact check of human cognition reality.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor