Re: Fonseca on math and explanation

["Alan G. Isaac" <AISAAC@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg,
There seems to be crucial ambiguity in your use of 'explain'.
Even if we cannot explain the emergence of money in any formal
way, though people are trying as I'm sure you're aware,
we may be able to formally characterize the behavior of
existing monetary institutions. Let's start with what I take
to be the most straightforward example, just to see how
deeply our differences go. Finance models imply arbitrage
conditions that are readily empirically verified (w/o debating
exactly what verification entails).
--Alan G. Isaac

On Sat, 22 Apr 1995 09:18:30 -0600 GREG RANSOM said:
>As far as I can see the                                                  re
>are only three possible contingent causes for explaining the undesigned
>order found in the prices->costs pattern or for the institions of several
>property, the evolved sense of justice described by Hume, or that of money.
>These are (1) human learning and discovery; (2) human imitation of the
>behavior patterns of others, or (3) pure chance or incidence.  The work of