Philo and Economics activites in SL during spring 2010

Hi!
I have been spending a great deal of my SL time in Philosophy House (PH) camp fire. Usually the discussion there is just general chit chat, sometimes not too interesting at all, but every now and then a good philosophy topic comes up and then the conversation can be engaging. But the main attraction of PH has been that there is always people, pretty much 24/7. A problem from a discussion point of view is that the chat format tends to limit how much "room" there is in the local chat window to justify your arguments. If you are not a really fast typist, the topic often tends to fade away, before you have time to get all your ideas visible - or like in my case, I come up with the all the best replies only too late, after the topic has changed already =). Of course at the same time, that is the appeal of chatting as well: The fast pace of interaction, makes it feel like a real life conversation except the strength with the text format can temporarily support several parallel threads going on at the same time.

So now there are a couple of web forums associated to PH or the crowd that comes there regularly. The idea is to offer a forum for a more slow paced discussion. Brinn Bedlam started a "traditional" internet discussion forum for PH in http://www.thephilosophyhouse.com where the idea is to allow people to write longer posts. Many of the PH regulars, that I recognize, seem to have made posts there already.

I have been planning to go even further and start an internet journal for longer article-like essays, like the some of the posts I have had in this blog. The PH journal is not officially public yet, but you can take a sneak preview at http://phjournal.ning.com. In order for PH Journal to be a real philosophical journal, there is an editorial policy. Even though there are no strict guidelines for format, the expectation is that the citations would be referenced and arguments justified. If you take a look, I'd be grateful for all feedback how you think it looks like through the phjournal mail.

I have also been active in pursuing the investigation of "Quantum theory of Economics" (QTE) in SL workshop and I have had some amazing contributors this year. During the workshop it turned out rather soon, that the idea wasn't quite so radical than I had thought in my blog in March =) It appears that there are quite many research groups working with more or less similar kind of ideas already. However applying quantum formalism to macroscopic interactions is still a very fresh approach and the field is very open for all new mathematical and formally sound theories. A new workshop around QTE, business interactions and microeconomics will now start within Tothica SL group (see for example http://www.tothicasl.net). The idea is to discuss qualitatively microeconomics and specifically how business comes into being as a result of human interactions and external circumstances (QTE apporach) and how that creates economy in general. The workshop will also have a Ning forum at http://qteconomics.ning.com, where I will gradually copy all the material from the previous QTE workshop in SL. The moderated discussions will be held in the Library of Clemson University Dev sim. For notices of exact location and time of the workshop's SL session, join the Tothica group. They have great Philo discussions and other meetings, too...and costs nothing to join!

Hope to see you not just inworld but also at all the new and fancy associated web 2.0 Ning forums!

Merry approaching christmas season
Quin

From Political Correctness to Quantum Gender

In her book "Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning" [1] Karen Barad discusses how it is physically impossible to separate matter from meaning in practise. She is working towards a theory which she calls agential realism. It is based on the idea that the meanings the conscious agents making the observation have in their mind are conceptually inseparable from the object they are investigating. She says that this would be a generalization of the classical Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. She quotes Niels Bohr and says: Bohr’s argument for the indeterminable nature of measurement interactions is based on his insight that “concepts are defined by the circumstances required for their measurement” [Bohr]. That is theoretical concepts are not ideational in character; they are specific physical arrangements. [1].

To me it seems that Barad’s ideas would somehow touch on something about the connection between matter and discourse that the existentialists and postmodernists have tried to intuitively grasp have for the last 50 decades. But unlike postmodernists in the average, Barad actually knows what she is talking about when she refers to mathematics and QM. Using the agential realism approach she discusses how we could analyze ethics, metaphysics, “topologies of power” and other branches of applied philosophy. Most concrete she gets when she applies agental realistic analysis to “technoscientific practises” and gender roles. In my (not very) humble opinion that analysis raises her in to the front row of contemporary feminist theorists. She also naturally continues from the observations of Judith Butler since I think Barad’s treatment kind of paves a QM theoretical background to Butler’s realization that even sexes, not just gender roles, are fundamentally pejorative: Sexes are in practise created by actions and interactions rather than being a preassigned property of humans.

At this point I need to remind that of course Butler, too, is not denying the existence of biological sexes, but she is making an argument that fundamentally sexes come into being through our actions and interactions. Butler does not want to separate gender roles and sexes in a same way that the traditional 2nd and 3rd generation of feministic theory [2] has usually done, since she is making a convincing argument that there is no reason to do it. And as a bonus it becomes much easier to construct a credible “queer theory”, because after all the lesbians and gays seem to fall into the middle in all classical feminist theories. I am not really an expert on queer theories….but Butler is! If Butler interests you, you must read “Gender trouble” [3]

Now in my previous blog I was making an argument that the progress of equality development has stopped in many fields in western countries, despite the legislation everywhere in west should in principle support it by now. Yet there are many unresolved issues. In many - if not even the most - of disciplines in science and business women (or sometimes men) are underrepresented, in OECD countries women get paid only 70-80 % of what men do in average and very often the fitting of everyday family live and work career is seeing as the problem for women only!!! My claim was that this can be seen as a failure for feministic movement and that it could be because the contemporary feministic theory does yet not give all the building blocks to make further progress from where we are now. Of course there are movements that try to free themselves from the obvious limiting dogmas of 2nd and 3rd generation feminism and call themselves post feministic, but I do not see any whatsoever reason to give up feminism and go post feministic quite yet – we are definetely not there yet! I would rather promote investigating new approaches based on Barad’s and Butler’s ideas. And I have already a cool term to describe this study: Quantum Gender.


So what would it mean in practise? With the title “from political correctness to quantum gender” I meant we need to move on from just being politically correct to something more. Because the legislative means used to achieve the goals of 2nd and 3rd generation feminism are not enough to break the glass ceilings that still hinder people to obtain the same opportunities in work life and society regardless what type of sex organs they have been born with.

If we take Barad’s quantum physical approach, Quantum Gender would mean that our gender (and sex too like Butler suggests) becomes into existence only as a consequence of and with the meaning that an active agent observing the sex gives to it. In work life and professional world it should entail a principle that if we are looking people to perform specific functions, we should not define people in advance based on what irrelevant properties (sex organs, skin color, ethnic background etc) they might have, but only what a person is expected to do. If we assign people irrelevant properties in advance, it affects also the outcome of our judgement. Now that is of course common sense and that’s’ what the equal opportunity legislation in western world tries to achieve anyway, but in practise it’s not enough as we have seen. In the previous blog I gave examples how people still treat exactly similar job applications differently depending whether the applicant’s name is male or female. So I fear the glass ceilings will not get broken by the legislative actions alone.

I suspect that there are very few jobs anymore in the post-industrialized world where biological sex really has any relevance. In fact hardly any work (if any other than being a prostitute) requires specific sex organs to do the job. It may even be sex organs might have relevance only in activities what they are good for, namely reproduction and sexual recreational pleasure. So with the Quantum Gender approach our sex should not come into being at all when we define ourselves as professionals. Of course that has been the goal for feminism at all times, but since the feministic theory has been so far based on the dichotomies, sex has still been a predefined property of individuals. It means that feminism so far has been saying: Let’s be Politically Correct (statement PC)
PC: We are men and women – but hey, it is forbidden treat us such when it doesn’t count
Whereas the Quantum Gender proposal (statement QG) would be more like
QG: We are people - and when we want to think about having sex, let’s observe our sexes then

I think QG approach would make a more easy path to break the glass ceilings in the long run. Firstly I hear a lot of the people complain about political correctness. I think it is because some feel the PC statement is fundamentally saying “We have sexes, but let’s not think about it” and it becomes a bit like saying “Don’t think about a pink elephant” - and of course you end up doing just that. My observation is that for the more simple minded people the PC statement seems to be stressful ;-) Secondly QG should be good also in sense that it should free ourselves from gender role expectations as careerists, household keepers, parental roles…(and anywhere outside bed room activities =) If we assume that there are no sexes, where they don’t count, there should not be any pressure on expectations either. But in order to get there the QG idea should be part of our culture.

Changing culture towards QG makes sense in my opinion. Us humans are self aware intelligent creatures and we have adapted our culture many times to support the life conditions we have lived in. Today we don’t live in caves any longer and in modern information society advancing equality should benefit both the common good and individual happiness by allowing us to use our abilities and properties in ways that are relevant to what we want to do. Not by labelling us in advance according to our sex organs.

Of course I am not saying that legislation everywhere in the western world or OECD countries is fully compliant to move to QG yet. Particularly in terms of maternity leave compensation there is still a lot to do in many countries, although I think EU is in average more progressive than US at the moment. However, I think QG could be the next step…but how to get there?

I don’t have any program how we could move from PC to QG yet. I do not suggest that governements should start tuning their legislations right this instance just because I wrote this blog =)…. But I would rather challenge people to start thinking of the next generation of feministic movement by investigating Barad and Butler seriously, thinking about what differenc QG could make, research what the implementation of Barak’s and Butler’s ideas would mean in practise and how this implementation could be done with concrete actions.

I know also that when I am saying that 3rd gen feminism is promoting PC, I am not giving enough credit to all contemporary feministic studies. There are of course a lot of woman studies scholars that are basically saying essentially the same thing as I outline here as a QG principle. However, oftentimes they reject being called feminists, and that I don’t agree with. I think as long as we are not people first and men and women only where it counts…there is no reason to give up feministic movements. And we are not there yet.

I see the equality train slowing down in the west and I fear it is in a jeopardy of stopping altogether before reaching the station unless it is fuelled with new ideas.


[1] Barad, Karen “Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning”, Duke Unoversity Press

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism

[3] Butler, Judith “Gender Trouble”, Routledge, 1989

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Phew…it has been a really busy fall. I haven’t had much time do blogging even though the world is no less full of topics to rant about than before =). Cheers to anyone dropping by here!

Status update on patriarchy / Feminism in a standstill

Ann Gallagher and James C. Kaufmann conclude in their book “Gender differences in mathematics” [1] that It has simply never been established that there is any meaningful and substantial sex differences in mathematics ability that is not massively confounded with factors related to individual experience. Therefore researchers whose goals are to are to understand the biological basis of behaviour still need even to produce data that suggest that there is that there is any sex difference that can be even partly explained by biological factors.

There is a huge amount of research on the subtleties of differences between female and male cognition, but all research indicates that whatever differences there are (for example in problem solving strategies) based on the current data, it is practically impossible to unambiguously separate biological factors from what is caused by gender roles and individuals' personal histories of learning. There seems to be more variance in intellectual performance within a group consisting solely of men than a group of women. In other words the Gaussian distribution seems to be more spread out of a fully male group in terms all types of intellectual performance (not just mathematical) than with a fully female group. But this too, could be just a reaction to how the school systems and teachers have reflected to gender role based behaviours and expectations [2].

The history of science and philosophy has truly been “His Story” since other than a very few exceptions, women have been banned to participate higher education up until about 100 years ago. The most courageous and eager of women did however make themselves heard in science, but they had to usually do it either anonymously or using their husbands name to be able to get their thoughts published.

For exemple Marie-Sophie Germain, who was the first woman to get a seat in the French academy of science, had to first pretend to be man, “monsier LeBlanc”, in order to be taken seriously and to establish the correspondence with her first mentor Friedrich Gauss, the most prominent mathematician of the time. Here is how she eventually revealed herself to Gauss in 1807 [4]:

But how to describe to you my admiration and astonishment at seeing my esteemed correspondent Monsieur Le Blanc metamorphose himself into this illustrious personage who gives such a brilliant example of what I would find it difficult to believe. A taste for the abstract sciences in general and above all the mysteries of numbers is excessively rare: one is not astonished at it: the enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it. But when a person of the sex which, according to our customs and prejudices, must encounter infinitely more difficulties than men to familiarize herself with these thorny researches, succeeds nevertheless in surmounting these obstacles and penetrating the most obscure parts of them, then without doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and superior genius. Indeed nothing could prove to me in so flattering and less equivocal manner that the attractions of this science, which has enriched my life with so many joys, are not chimerical, [than] the predilection with which you have honored it.

There are many sad stories during the 19th centuries how brilliant women were simply prohibited attending universities, especially in mathematics and philosophy, but that was then. Today the situation is of course different at least in western societies…or is it?

Namely there are still amazingly few women in science and technology and even philosophy, much less than you would expect now that there should not be any more legal restrictions for women doing science (in western world). I claim that it is largely because the old gender role based patriarchy is still there between our ears. I think such strong cultural traditions don’t completely disappear in 100 years, in just a few generations.

From my own personal experience I can say that I have several times run into attitudes and heard many men claim that women are somehow less capable to succeed in mathematics, philosophy, technology or Information technology, because their problem solving strategies are somehow more “conservative” or “less creative” or whatever. But you don’t just have to take my word for it. There are a lot of studies showing that in IT business and engineering, exactly similar job applications get a less favourable review, if the applicant has a female name than a male name [5]. Interestingly I remember reading a study that showed that if a male job application reviewer had a women engineer in his family, he would rate female engineering job applicants more favourably than men who have no experience about woman engineers…The prejudices seem to go away with experience.

In fact I have met some young male “hero” SW developers that have been quite convinced that women are up to no good particularly as programmers. Well I myself am not up to any good...that's true... but I wonder if these guys are aware that many of the modern programming languages such as Java, C and C++ are based on the theoretical findings of this year’s Turing price winner (most esteemed recognition in computing) Barbara Liskov’s work on data abstraction and programming language development [6] (thanks Strider). So dear boys before you judge all the woman programmers beforehand, remember that the tools you use might have a solid female touch in them ;-)

During the 10 years I have hung out in the internet participating philosophy discussions I have met even admitted misogynists, who think that women just make too much noise about themselves. I don’t agree they do since I dare to suspect that practically every women over the age of 35 has some experiences how the patriarchy's attitudes have surfaced in some instance in a way that it has had a disruptive effect in some serious work at hand, whether it be in business or academia. Glass ceilings are still there in many places! When you are younger, you don’t care so much about individual incidents, at least if they don’t occur everyday, or if you are of the more naive sort, you might not even understand some of the underlying innuendos to connect the dots. But when you start approaching middle age, at some point you will start to notice that patriarchy and sexism are still alive and an undercurrent in many places that matter.

And in fact the patriarchy is not in the business of going away at the moment. The statistics show that women’s share of the traditionally male dominated businesses has not increased significantly during the last 20-30 years in the western countries and women still earn smaller salaries with same ratio that they did a few decades back. I think this is a major failure for the feministic movement.

I will not accuse men…or let me take that back... yes I do accuse some men. The kind of men who have made a hasty conclusion that all feminism in general is useless or unnecessary, without acknowledging that our western societies are still far from being equal, or men who think the equality has just come automatically, without knowing all the work that was done by feminist movements before women got to vote, go to school or even go to work in any society today. Or the kind of men who use constantly sexist argumentation just out of mean sexist attitudes (disguised sometimes as humor), fear of women or plain stupidity, or the men who outright hate women and see it acceptable to spread hatred. Of course there can be man hating women too and they would be equally harmful, but according to my experience these men (or women) are just the-not-so-smart people among us, who are afraid of loosing their identity if they do not maintain an illusion being superior just because of their sex. I personally believe that with proper understanding of gender roles and how they work in a society, the reasons to be afraid would in general diminish in the long run. There would be less reasons to be afraid of loosing "manhood" (or womanhood for that matter).

But I think discussing how feminism and feministic theory should evolve is important. I suspect that feministic or gender theories are in a standstill, because they seem not being able to analyse the gender questions further in a way that would explain satisfactorily why equality among sexes does not seem to be making progress at the moment.

- - - - - -

My original plan was to write more about the gender theories, especially refer to Judith Butler and Karen Barad, since I think they have very original ideas that could open new ways by challenging the traditional dichotomies... but I ran out of time now :-( I hope to be able to continue soon, since I already had a cool title for that writing: Quantum gender !!!
- of course :D

Q

[1] Gallagher, A. and Kaufmann, J. “Gender differences in mathematics”, Cambridge University Press, 2005
[2] McGillicuddy-De Lisi, A. and De Lisi R. Biology, “Society and Behavior, The Development of Sex differences in cognition”, Ablex publishing, 2002
[3] http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/germain.htm
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Germain
[5] Wilson, F.M. “Organizational behaviour and gender”, Ashgate publishing, 2003
[6] http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/turing-liskov-0310.html/

Loki the Liger

One day my roommate at our Heffalump (!) apartement, Lokifluff Clarity, was wearing a Liger avatar. I guess a Liger is taxonomically somewhere between a Tiger and a Lion. Doesn't it look amazing? By clicking the picture you can see it in full screen size :

Here is another shot. The kitty on the floor was the package for the liger Avi.

The liger could roar and jump and do all the things a real life liger would do...if only it existed

Aww...isn't it cute!!!

smiles
Q

Q&A about Dar Innis's metaphysics

I managed to get Dar here on my blog and he was kind to do a Q&A session about his metaphysics essay:

QS: Hi Dar and welcome! I’m very glad that you got the time to visit my blog, how have you been?

DI: I've been doing well, thanks.

QS: Thanks for letting me publish your thoughts about “Being Is Not Relative, And Perspectives Of Being Are Relative”. I was very impressed when I read it. I think that although your basic idea is deceptively simple, it is at the same time extremely clever! But first could you clarify more why did you choose to use the word “Being” rather than “exist”?

DI: It's not really my idea. It's Parmenides idea. I simply take it a step further than he was able to. I actually used to refer to that which I here call Being as existence. Existence didn't work so well as I want to talk about what unconditionally is, and I found that people strongly associate the word existence with things that conditionally are. Being also suffers this problem, but people seem more willing to get beyond that with 'capital B Being'. I personally prefer the word truth, next I prefer 'capital T Truth'; yet, with the word truth I have to clarify that I am not speaking of propositional truth and the like. I've even tried making a new word: isness. Lao-tzu made a good point in the Tao Te Ching when he referred to this subject as unnamable. Yet, we have to refer to it in some way. He went with the Tao. Currently I favor 'capital B Being'.

QS: One of the reasons I personally liked your writing is that it seemed to suit my personal views on metaphysics. According to your definition, it is not only physically directly observable things that can exhibit Being, but anything that can be stated in some form including things like logical truths, fictitious statements or even dreams. But do you think it would be still possible to categorize the different types of being in some more “fundamental” levels of existences? For example, it seems to me that many physicists seem to rank the being of physically observable things more “real” than our thoughts, even if the thoughts were about what we make of our observations. I, on the contrary, have always thought that logical truths are somehow more fundamental than physical observations =).

DI: I do not think it useful to regard any real thing as any more real than any other real thing. Everything that is, is. There is not anything that is in a way that is more or less than anything else is. In understanding how different things relate, I would agree that logical truths are more fundamental than physical truths. I think physical truths are a manifestation of logical truths. However, I also think that thinking and the development of logic depend upon having something like a brain which depends upon physical truths.

QS: You make a separation between perspectives of being and being itself. Being exists in every way it is possible for it to exists, allowing different perspectives. But aren’t the perspectives themselves some sort of beings? Like the notion “A is shorter than B” is a sentence that is being, at the same time it is a perspective to the being of A. Do you see any contradiction that a thing is at the same time being and a description of a perspective?

DI: This is really an excellent question. Being itself is sort of it's own universe of discourse, and it cannot be related to anything else. Perspectives of Being constitute another universe of discourse. All perspectives of Being are Being, but no single perspective of Being is Being itself. Sort of like A is a letter of the alphabet without being the alphabet itself, or a circle is geometrical without being Geometry itself. No, I do not see it as a contradiction for a sentence to both be and to be a description of a perspective.

QS: Ok, so perspectives are something that get shape through our cognition, right?

DI: No, these perspectives I am talking about are not shaped through our cognition. Being itself seems to have a crude awareness of itself. From this awareness arise the singular and continuum perspectives of Being. Betwixt these two extremes there lies a continuum of intermediate perspectives where the singular and continuum perspectives relate with each other. It is this relativity of perspectives that give rise to physical phenomena and the complexity necessary for human cognition.

I realize it seems odd to consider non-human perspective, or that Being itself has a crude sort of awareness. This is likely the most fantastical seeming aspect of this metaphysic. If being did not have some sort of awareness of itself, the perspectives of Being would not arise. If the perspectives of Being did not arise, nothing resembling us or the world in which we live would arise. At least, that is the case if this metaphysic is correct. I suspect that human awareness is like a spike in the crude awareness of Being itself. Augmented by sense organs and a brain for memory and computation, our awareness is much more advanced than the crude baseline awareness Being as of itself.

As for actual Beings, I do not think there are any such things. Being is indivisible, singular. It cannot be separated into Beings. There does not be such a thing that is other than Being by which Being could be divided.

I'm much more in line with the Buddhist view of the world. We would not consider the blinking of an eye as a Being. The blinking of an eye has no independent being or substance of its own. The blinking of an eye arises, occurs, then ceases, so is impermanent. The blinking of an eye only is while the eye blinks, so is dependent upon and conditioned by the eye blinker. The blinking of an eye is an act, and we consider the blinker of the eye to have a greater claim to be a Being than the blinking of an eye.

Well, I am an act done by organs. Organs are acts done by tissues. Tissues are acts done by cells. Cells are acts done by organelles. Organelles are acts done by molecules. Molecules are acts done by atoms. Atoms are acts done by subatomic phenomena. Some subatomic phenomena are acts done by other subatomic phenomena. Other subatomic phenomena seem elemental. We do not know what does these elemental subatomic phenomena. We do know that these elemental subatomic phenomena are 'quanta of energy'. Quanta of energy is a scientific way of saying 'discrete packets with measurable activity'. Discrete packets of with measurable activity is a verbose way of saying 'acts'. We are acts, just like the blinking of an eye is an act. I may occur longer than the blinking of an eye, but this makes me no less empty, impermanent, or conditioned than the blinking of an eye. It would be inconsistent for me to regard myself a Being so long as I do not consider the blinking of an eye a Being. Furthermore, I have yet to encounter anything else that I could consistently regard as a Being. The Buddha speaking of things in the phenomenal world would say 'All is Dhukkha'. I would say, also regarding the phenomenal world, 'All is activity'.

QS: I see! But the “act” that we call our cognition does seems anyway to interact with other cognitions through language , so could it be said that the relationship between “universe of discourse (about perspectives)” and “universe of actual Beings” is in some way similar to relationship of language and the true essence of perspectives of beings, that Wittgenstein, existentialists and others have been trying to study?

DI: Our language developed in response to the world as we had to engage it. Rarely did we have time to consider the nature of things. Things like mountains, people, and hammers seem to long endure. From a practical perspective likening them to acts such as the blinking of an eye seems absurd.

I think that existentialist projects have a great deal going for them; however, I do think that many existentialists confuse their primarily epistemological projects with metaphysics, or think that they allow them to make proclamations about metaphysics that I would classify as categorical errors. I covered one such instance when I spoke of Heidegger's lecture, 'What is Metaphysics'. I certainly do not think metaphysics is a linguistic confusion as some would suggest. If it were, it should be much easier to find the right words to express metaphysical claims.

I haven't explored existential philosophy perhaps as much as I should. To me, its enough that I experience anything at all to know that it is Being that I experience something, and that it is not Being that I do not experience something to establish that there is Being.

QS: What do you think is the implication of your metaphysics to the definition to causality? If Beings of things are not related to each other, they probably can’t be causes to each other? So is causality also all about perspectives, too?

DI: What I mean by Being is quite different than what we mean by the being of a thing. In perspectives where there are many things, these things can relate with other such things. Perspective does seem to me to be close to the root of causality though. The crude physical theory this metaphysic lead to uses the two basic perspectives of Being, and the need to make them consistent with each other in intermediate perspectives, as its basis. As for Being itself, that is beyond causality.

QS: In light of your metaphysics, do you think that the lack of something, or the not-being of a thing, can cause a perception of something else being? So that that not-being could be cause of something (even a perception?)

DI: If a thing is not, it is not even a thing. A thing cannot not be. The basic perspectives of Being might seem a sort of nothing, but they are still perspectives of Being, and that is not nothing. I called an earlier form of this metaphysic 'Nothing and the Void', as a point without anything beyond it would seem like a sort of nothing, and an undifferentiated infinite continuum would seem like an endless void.

QS: You made nicely provocative statements that your metaphysics would make quantum mechanics less unintuitive….here is what came into my mind: When you say things are either Being or not, they become being only when they get some sort of stated form. And stating how things are Being needs someone to do it, there must be someone doing it. I understood the analogy to quantum mechanics, so that we know that physical things exists only when by observing them, but the observation is always part of the interpretation of a specific consciousness. We don’t know about the Being of things unless there is a conscious observer…or how would you describe the analogy?

DI: Well, perspective is the most mysterious aspect of this theory to me. For there to be the basic perspectives, and for them to interact, there must be some sort of awareness to in some way perceive them. For there to be motion at the speed of light or gravity or electromagnetism, according to this metaphysic, there must be some sort of awareness. I do not want to suggest this awareness is anything like human awareness. In the case of the basic perspectives, there does not exist enough complexity for even a crude half baked notion, no less self reflection, in either one of them. To get to the aspects of quantum strangeness this metaphysic seems to help resolve, I'd need to go into more detail on the crude scientific theory this metaphysic leads to. Some of it comes down to how the basic perspectives must interact in the intermediate perspectives. Some of it will come down to how different perspectives become more or less significant in determining how phenomena unfold. When we make an observation, we alter that dynamic.

QS: What about the concept of emergence? Does it become useless in light of your metaphysics? Since beings of things are not related, the whole question of reductionism vs. holism is only about perspectives?

DI: Well, the way the perspectives must interact in order to remain consistent causes all sorts of things to emerge. I guess you could put me more on the holism side. I think that awareness is inherent in Being, which enables Being to perceive itself in different ways. I tend to think of human awareness as sort of spikes in this awareness, where our physical bodies have enabled more detailed sensing with organs and an ability to record, organize, and ponder what is sensed with brains. Sometimes I like to think of consciousness and life as Being seeking to take a more active role with itself. I do not believe in disembodied thought, even if I think Being itself has some sort of crude inherent awareness.

QS: What do you plan to do next? Are you planning studying specific applications?

DI: I'm still working on expressing this understanding better, and I need to work on expressing the scientific theory it leads to better. Trying to pummel it into words is not easy for me, and most of my attempts seem to fall short. I need to get it polished to a point where it falls short slightly less so.

QS: Thank you!

Strider Villota discusses SL applications

Strider Villota is my friend from Education Island. Since he has lectured to business people in SL, I was eager to hear his opinion about the thoughts I wrote in “what did Rosedale really say”. I knew he had a lot of great insight in how SL is actually perceived today so I had to ask for an interview for the blog and he was very kind to go for it, so here it is!

QS: Welcome to my blog Strider. It’s a privilege to have you here!

SV: Thank you very much, Quintessential. I am very happy to be part of your blog. Though, according to some of the studies in your happiness articles, it is not my being here that makes me happy. I guess it is in my DNA… but I digress. I enjoy the variety of topics explored in your blog and I am honored that you asked for my opinion on SL.

QS: You have been following SL for quite a while and even lecturing here to information management professionals. What is your feeling, is SL still a hot topic or do you see the interest fading or changing now?

SV: I think the interest is changing, but it depends on the group. In general, I believe SL has followed the classic Gartner Hype Cycle (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle). In this model, the interest in a new technology climbs until it reaches a point of “inflated expectations”, disappointment follows and the hype decreases until it reaches a “trough of disillusionment”, and then the hype increase again through a gradual “slope of enlighten.” Judging by the recent press as mentioned in your earlier article, I think we are probably close to the trough of disillusionment.

QS: You have lectured both to industry CIOs (Chief Information Officers) as well as to University information system administrators. Were there any differences in their interest in SL, and if there was, why?

SV: Yes, I have talked about SL with industry CIOs and other high level managers in IS, as well as people associated with universities. From my experience, there has always been a different level of interest between the groups. In a presentation I made in 2007, I had both groups in the audience. SL was receiving a lot of press at the time. The university administrators were very enthusiastic about the possibilities. They asked many questions about using SL for recruiting students, teaching, alumni relations, and creating a social network among students. During the presentation, my colleague passed me a note to pay attention to the industry representatives. When I focused on this group, I found that they were extremely bored. Through my questioning, I discovered that they found little or no value in SL. They could not see how to attract customers with SL (in fact, they didn’t think universities could either), saw some minor possibilities for training, and felt there were much better 3D modelling tools to illustrate their products on their web sites. The industry representatives were also concerned about adult content in SL.

QS: What do you think were the initial expectations about SL in professional use? Do you think
SL has lived up to those expectations so far?

SV: While some companies have experimented in SL, most of the companies I talked with (with a few exceptions) were never interested. The few that were interested saw it as a possible vehicle for training. Some, though, were just experimenting with such things as virtual offices. I don’t know that the expectations were ever that high in the first place. A few years ago when companies had budgets to experiment, some would try new things like SL to see if they could discover a use. Judging by the number of companies that have left SL, I think most companies have not really found a use. In addition, although there are some interesting stories about university use, on the whole it has not really taken off in that market either.

QS: How do you see the future, how could SL offer the best value as an extension to RL business communications?

SV: Wow, this is a tough question. I think it probably depends on the industry. In general, I have difficulty seeing where SL might be a leading platform to support RL business communication. Usually, voice, text, charts, and tables are fine to support business communication. Where video is important, Skype or similar products that are not based on avatars would work better. The SL world allows activity in addition to communication. I think its unique feature is that it supports virtual physical interaction. That is why universities see it as a possible place for teaching and some businesses see possibilities for training. I’ve talked with some businesses that are interested in developing better robots in SL. I think they are interested in this because it would support controlled training exercises. I think there might also be some opportunities in SL for companies to offer activities like virtual social gatherings for customer groups. They could sponsor a band and a dance, for example, as a way to promote customer relations (this might be a bit farfetched). On the other hand, people at Philosophy House seem to like to sit around and talk. So, you never know how the desires of different groups may evolve.

QS: What about the technology? Do you think SL software supports the HW used in PCs (like graphics cards) efficiently or do you see room for development?

SV: One of the biggest problems I face with SL is that it runs best on only certain graphics cards. The Intel cards that come with many laptops these days are not supported. Although the laptops can sometimes run SL, SL frequently runs poorly (e.g., grind to a halt when there are many avatars or sculpted prims in the area). Consequently, it is difficult to hold a class or develop a training exercise when most of your students have laptops that do not run SL at least moderately well. Most students are only thinking about running word processing, presentation, and web browsing software when they buy their laptops…not SL.

QS: SL has several groups talking about metaverse, which I believe means the interoperability between different virtual worlds (besides SL I know of Open sim at least). There is even a discipline called metanomics! Do you think there exists any actual use of metaverse applications yet? What could be the benefits in the long run?

SV: I have not followed the discussion on metaverse applications, so my answer will be somewhat general. Normally, in IT interoperability is a good thing. One reason the web became so successful is that the user could jump from site to site regardless of the web server used and the information being displayed. If you needed a different browser for different web servers or different types of information, the web would be very difficult to use. Following that line of thought, it would be very convenient to easily jump from one virtual world to another. Ideally, you could do this with the same avatar and have some of the same features (inventory) of that avatar also work in the other world. In this case, different companies might create different specialized worlds. Some worlds could be geared toward gaming and others geared towards RL real estate, for example. Of course, SL may like it if it is all done through them, but different companies may evolve the technology in different directions.

QS: I understood you were slightly sceptical about my argument that anonymity would be one of the main benefits in SL communications (at least for people working in private companies). Could you tell what do you think would be the main benefit for NOT being anonymous in SL? If your avi just represents your RL self on-to-one, why would SL be preferential to an existing RL on-line communication system like Adobe connect Pro, or Skype even

SV: First, I think you do have a valid argument about anonymity. Even within a company, a discussion where participants are anonymous could generate more effective brainstorming. There are technologies that support that now, though, so you don’t necessarily need SL for that. My point on the anonymity feature of SL is that it seems to be counter to the way the world is moving. Teenagers, young adults, and even older adults seem to want the opposite of anonymity. That is, though cell phones, Twitter, and Facebook, people like to share information about their real life self. From a practical standpoint, as a teacher I would prefer to see my students’ real names in SL. As another example, if you were to hold an alumni event in SL, it would be much more fun to spot a RL friend by their RL name. I think SL does not offer an advantage over Skype of Adobe connect when the focus is primarily a business meeting. However, I don’t believe that you can hug a friend, dance, ski, or enjoy a virtual drink together while watching the same TV show on these other platforms.

QS: You mentioned to me about an idea connecting SL to RL social networking systems like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. How would that work in practise? What would be the benefit?
SV: Seamless integration, on the technology side, may be somewhat difficult to implement. So, skimming over the technical problems, let’s just focus on the functionality. It is possible that the future Internet will be a highly connected social network. That is, it will be easy for an individual user or a group to move from one Internet application to another with ease. In a way, SL is at its infancy at doing this. Currently, you can jump from a website to a SL location through a SLurl and it is easy to jump from SL to a website. However, the transition is not very smooth. It takes awhile for SL or the browser to open. You can also play YouTube videos (thanks for showing me that, by the way), through a SL TV. Based on this idea, it would seem like a natural step for friends visiting in Facebook, for example, to quickly move to SL, Skype, or a virtual game. Imagine visiting a friend’s Facebook page, reading about their recent life, and maybe even chatting with them through IM. Then you click a button and travel to their SL apartment where you can also see family pictures and, if they are in world, you visit with them, give them a hug, and perhaps play a 3D game. You could crudely do this now through a SLurl, but good integration would make it even easier. Perhaps a mini SL window would open inside of Facebook or the Facebook page could be wallpaper on the SL apartment. Of course, SL would not be the only thing connected. If you wanted to see the RL person and just converse, the click of a different button would give the friend a Skype call.

QS. Interesting ideas! But based on your experiences and the feedback you have received by lecturing to business information management professionals, how do you think SL itself will evolve?

SV: It seems that technology predictions are frequently wrong. So, I’m not confident in my answer at all. One possibility is that SL will continue to cater to those really seeking a second life, where anonymity is important. SL may have enough of a user base to continue to be a viable fairly small player on the Internet, in the scheme of things. Another possibility is that Linden Labs could start to segment their market. One segment would cater to the social networking arena. In this arena, anonymity would not be a sales feature. A second segment would cater to business training. LL would develop features in SL that make it easy to develop teamwork exercises, etc. A third segment could focus on professional level 3D models. These are just ideas. The advantage of the segments is that LL could experiment a bit to see if any of the ideas take off.

QS: Strider, what do you personally expect to get out of SL professionally in the future?

SV: Gosh, I don’t have high expectations for myself. I originally entered SL because I thought my students would be more interested in animated simulated worlds then the boring text based simulations that are used in higher education. For example, you might be able to teach entrepreneurship in SL by constructing a SL business. As another example, you could potentially teach project management by building something in SL, developing a schedule and budget, and then hiring SL firms to do the job. I’m still hopeful to do that someday if I can find the time.

QS That was great, thank you Strider!

It’s been a great spring for me in SL. And with the top class contributor’s I have managed to persuade to participate in this blog, I can start to be actually really proud of it!

Q

Dar Innis about the essence of being

And now something completely different.

Dar Innis is my friend from Philosophy House. One day we were chatting about the existence, and it became clear to me that Dar was no stranger to the topic…in fact I found out that he was quite a metaphyscist with original ideas about the essence of existence. After a little persuasion he gave me notes about his ideas and how he had worked definitions and a new approach to “Being of things” that could open ways for a new kind of metaphysics.

After reading the writing twice, I was very impressed!

I intuitively feel that although he was quite provocative in suggesting that his approach in defining being would open up ways to build a new kind of metaphysics that would make quantum weirdness more understandable….there actually could be something in it!

Dar wanted to emphasize that this writing is only on a very draft level, but he allowed me to publish it anyway, since I think his basic idea of the nature of being is presented there already so clearly. The ideas and argumentation are deceptively simple, yet intriguing and makes one want to develop the connections further as well as challenge some of the assumption....all characteristic to an exceptionally interesting work in my opinion. Also the responses to Parmenides and Heidegger are very interesting - check it out!

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Dar Innis:
Being Is Not Relative, And Perspectives Of Being Are Relative

Introduction

I have come to an understanding of being, and I want to share it. I hope this account of being helps you to come to a better understanding of being.

The title of this work sums up this account of being. Being is not relative, and perspectives of being are relative.

During the 6th Century BCE in what is currently Italy, Parmenides of Elea discovered the non-relativity of being. Parmenides did the best a man of his time and culture could do to understand what the non-relativity of being meant, but he fell short. With the benefit of over two and a half thousand years of philosophic and scientific advancement since, I have managed to succeed where Parmenides failed.

However, this victory is far from final. This rational account of being, or metaphysic, lays a foundation for a scientific theory that I am not qualified to develop or test. With this metaphysic, I understand why space and time dilate due to relative motion and about masses, as it does in Einstein's theories of Special and General Relativity. With this metaphysic, I can even begin to understand why the phenomena explored by Quantum Physics behave in such unintuitive ways. Yet, that is as far as I have managed to push it.

I must leave it to other seekers of truth to succeed where I have failed. I hope by sharing my successes and failures that I may in some way contribute to the endeavor to understand being.

What Is Being?

What is being? The simple answer is that everything is being. Whatever one can consistently state to in any way be is being. It is being that one plus one equals two. It is being that we have observed bodies in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by a force. It is being that George Washington was the first president of the United States of America. It is being that Odysseus outwitted a cyclops in the Odyssey. Anything that is, whether abstract, physical, non-fictional, fictional, or in whatever other way that a thing can consistently be considered to be, is being.

It is that it is the case that it is the truth that it is being that we have many synonyms for being. Parmenides called it 'what is' or 'that which is'. Whatever is the case is being, and being itself could be considered the totality of the case or the case itself. That which true propositions accurately state is being, or we could even call it truth.

All fields of investigation are attempts to understand being. I do not believe it any wonder that sciences such as physics and chemistry explore being. However, even humanities such as art and literature are explorations of being.

Metaphysics, as I use the word, is the rational examination not of what is being, but of being itself. As this account of being is a metaphysic, let us proceed to examine being itself.

There is not being anything that is not being.

There is not being anything that is not being. A thing must be being to be being. A thing that is not being, is not being. A thing that is not being cannot even be consistently thought to be a thing. A thing that is not being cannot have any properties or do anything whatsoever.

I realize this seems inane. Well, it is. It is a tautology, like T=T, not(T)=not(T), and not(T=not(T)).

Unfortunately, there are being some people who maintain that there is being such a thing that is not being. Continental philosophy following Heidegger maintains the contradiction that T=not(T) and T. This is why Continental philosophy does not rely on logic. It views logic as a mistake, and instead appeals to narrative satisfaction, or story logic.

In Heidegger's inaugural lecture, 'What is metaphysics', he asserts that science defines itself as the study of being, and not anything else. Heidegger emphasizes this 'not anything else', or nothing, and claims that science cannot define itself without it. Heidegger rejects that 'nothing' is a null result obtained by negating the totality of all being by asserting that negation depends upon experience of this 'nothing' before we can use it in the first place. Heidegger then claims to find an experience of this nothing withdrawing into itself and away from all things in the experience of angst. This, for him, is enough evidence to prove his assertion that an experience of 'nothing' is required for the act of cognitive negation. He concludes that logic is a mistake and all science that follows the rejection of this 'nothing' is a mistake.

Heidegger is mistaken.

Science does not have to appeal to 'nothing' in order to define itself. Science is the empirical examination of being. Adding that science does not examine what is not being, while consistent, is hardly necessary.

'Nothing' is the null result obtained when one considers the negation of the totality of being. Negation does not depend upon an experience of 'nothing'. All that is necessary for understanding negation is an experience of some difference. Negation is simply the cognitive recognition of difference. This is not that. Red is not blue. You are not me.

Heidegger may genuinely find something that seems to withdraws in itself and away from beings in the experience of angst; however, 'nothing' is not something, and cannot be or do anything whatsoever. As this 'something' he finds withdrawing into itself and away from beings is not 'nothing', he is mistaken in identifying it as such, and anything that follows from this acceptance of contradiction is built upon a mistake.

Those who follow in this mistake are equally mistaken. This is not to say there is no value in their work. There is value in phenomenology. However, by identifying something experienced phenomenologically with a concept developed rationally they are making a categorical mistake. This mistake seems to me to be motivated by the desire to promote phenomenology by denying rationality.

In any case, science is not mistaken in examining what is being and not bothering with an examination of what is not being. Heidegger failed to demonstrate that there is being such a thing that is not being, and so has everyone else.

I lament how common it is in philosophy for a philosopher to declare all that preceded them was a mistake, and that only their new novel way of thinking can rescue us from this mistake. Heidegger was not the first, and shall not be the last, to make this ridiculous claim. Despite this major point of difference, I think Heidegger does make some valuable insights. I especially like his emphasis on experiential knowledge obtained by doing.

I apologize for the diversion. Allow me to get back to the point of this section. It is a mistake to consider that there is being such a thing that is not being. A thing that is being is being. A thing that is not being is not being, and cannot even be considered a thing. Thinking that there is being such a thing that is not being, and that this thing somehow is or plays some role in what is being is a mistake. It is the exact same thing a statement which mixes truth and falsehood. When a statement mixes truth and falsehood, the statement fails to state truth. If we mix being and nothing in an understanding, the result is not an accurate understanding of being.

If a thing cannot participate in any relationship, that thing is not relative.

For a thing to be relative, that thing must be able to participate in some relationship. If a thing cannot participate in some relationship, that thing is not relative.

I hope you find these two statements uncontroversial.

For a thing, If there is not any thing that is not the thing with which the thing can relate, the thing cannot participate in any relationship.

For a thing to participate in any relationship, there must be some thing that is not that thing with which the thing can relate. If there is not any thing that is not the thing with which the thing can relate, the thing cannot participate in any relationship.

Again, I hope you find these two statements uncontroversial.

I have run into some opposition on this point though. There are being some people who consider it possible for a thing to relate with itself. I do not consider such self associations as relations. I consider them identities. So, if you consider such self associations as relations, keep in mind that I do not.

Being is not relative.

For being to be relative, being must be able to participate is some relationship. If being cannot participate in any relationship, being is not relative.

For being to be able to participate in any relationship, there must be some thing that is not being with which being can relate. If there is not any thing that is not being, being cannot participate in any relationship.

There is not any thing that is not being. Being cannot participate in any relationship. Being is not relative.

On the non-relativity of being.

We generally understand things by their relationships. For instance, we could understand a Louisville Slugger baseball bat as a wood club made by the Louisville Slugger Company for batting in the game of baseball. This baseball bat does not compose itself, but is composed of something that is not itself: wood. This baseball bat is not itself a club-like form, but has been shaped into the form of a club. The baseball bat itself is not the Louisville Slugger Company, but was manufactured by the Louisville Slugger Company. The baseball bat is not itself batting in the game of baseball, but is used for batting in the game of baseball. We could go beyond these four basic relationships and explore further. One who is not born into a culture where the game of baseball is played would not even be able to identify the baseball bat as a baseball bat. The baseball bat's meaning as a baseball bat depends upon an incredibly complex web of relationships.

As being is not relative, being is not and has no substantial, efficient, or final principles that we could use to understand being. There is not anything to compose being, nor could being compose anything. There is not anything that could have produced being, nor is there anything that being could produce. There is not some purpose that being could seek, nor is there anything that is not being that could seek being.

The formal principle includes many different relationships.

Being cannot change. A change of being would require that it is being that being is being, and it is being that being is not being. Whether you place being first or second in the sequence of this change, being is still being on both ends, and no change has actually been described.

Being cannot move. Motion is a relationship of positional change with some reference. There is not being any reference with which being's position could change.

Being does not have anything beyond it in any way. There is not anything that could be above, below, left of, right of, ahead of, behind, before, after, or in any other way outside of being. There is not anything that could be in any way inside of being.

Being cannot separate anything as space separates the stars. Being cannot be separated by anything as stars are separated by space. For this reason we can state that being must be altogether, continuous, and one in number.

Being cannot vary in density. Being cannot be thicker here and thinner there, as there is not anything to thin being as water thins wine. For this reason we can state that being must be everywhere full of only itself, without any variation.

The form of being seems elusive as there is not being anything with which we could in any way contrast with being. This did not stop everyone from trying to solve the form of being. Both Parmenides of Elea and Melissus of Samas tried.

Parmenides concluded that being possessed finite spatial extent, and no temporal extent. While Parmenides discovered the non-relativity of being and made the first deductive argument, not all of his arguments were as grand. Living west of Greece during the 6th Century BCE, Parmenides had no concept of zero distinct from nothing. Since Being cannot be not, he naturally concluded that being could not possess no extent, as that would amount to the contradiction of being not being. Today, we are more prepared to consider a thing with zero length, even if we still consider a quantity of zero as no real quantity.

Parmenides also argued that the infinite was in need of all things, and that being is in need of no thing, so he would not allow himself to think that being extended infinitely. This argument against the infinite is weak, and I suspect Parmenides motive was to avoid having his conception of being associated with the theory of Anaximander, who considered the material of all things as Apeiron, without limit, or the infinite.

This left Parmenides with only one option for the spatial extent of being, some finite extent. Seeing as being possessed a limit, and that there is not anything beyond being to impede being, being must extend equally in all directions forming a spatially extended sphere.

Curiously, Parmenides had no difficulty doing away with time: “Nor was it ever, nor will it be; for now it is, all at once, a continuous one.”

Melissus of Samos later sought to correct these inconsistencies. He felt that Parmenides had been unjust in treating space differently than time. Furthermore, Melissus was not biased against infinite extent, and saw the weakness of Parmenides argument against the infinite. While Melissus did not state his case as well as Parmenides, the solution of Melissus is more consistent. Melissus concluded that being ever was, and ever shall be, infinite with both space and time. However, this infinite being still did not permit for any variation or change.

Melissus was correct in considering the dimensions of space and the dimension of time as dimensions and treating them the same. Without any higher maths available, Melissus had no reason to consider the possibility of more dimensions. In his time, stating that being possessed infinite extent with both space and time amounted to stating that being possessed infinite extent with all dimensions. So, with that minor adjustment, the solution of Melissus is logically consistent. Being could, with logical consistency, form a completely unvarying continuum with infinite extent in all dimensions.

Parmenides solution was inconsistent. A finite extent is necessarily relative. If there is some finite extent, it has a limit, one naturally asks: what lies beyond the limit? Furthermore, any finite form has internal complexity. As Plato had Parmenides say in 'The Parmenides', the center of a sphere differs from the surface of a sphere, as well as other points within the sphere. A finitely extended being is simply inconsistent with the non-relativity of being.

Had Parmenides treated space as he treated time, he could have arrived at a logically consistent solution. Being could, with logical consistency, form an point, without anything beyond it: a singularity with zero extent with any dimension.

Even with the correction to Parmenides solution, both of these solutions suffer a fatal defect. Neither solution allows for any sort of variation or change. We live in a world full of variation and change. We cannot accept either solution without denying ourselves and the world in which we live. This is what both Parmenides and Melissus seemed to do. Both considered the world presented to us by sense as somehow mistaken or illusory. Even if I were to concede that the world in which we live is an illusion, by what mechanism could either of these solutions to the form of being possibly produce this illusion? I cannot consistently accept either solution.

Where does this leave us? Being could form a singularity or a flat continuum. Neither solution can permit the world of variation in which we live. Short of conceding that being has no form, we have only one more alternative to consider. If being could form a singularity or a flat continuum, and being does not form either a singularity or a flat continuum, perhaps we are dealing with an inclusive or, and being forms both a singularity and a flat continuum.

Perspectives of being are relative.

How could this one being form two such different forms? These two different forms are simple solutions to the form of being. We can synthesize these simple forms into a single complex form. Topologically, the two forms are identical. After all, it is topological considerations that led us to them. In both cases, the forms possess no sides, internally or externally. We are dealing with one form, a topology, with at least two ways of looking at it, or with at least two perspectives.

With at least two ways of perceiving being, we have enough difference to build up a theory of relativity. Not difference of being itself, but difference in the way being is perceived.

This brings us to a tricky question: What perceives these different solutions so that relativity can arise? The solution is rather simple, if a bit astonishing. There is not being anything that is not being to perceive these different solutions to the form of being. Only being itself could perceive these different solutions to the form of being. What is it like for being to be being? If being can be being in more than one way, being would have to be being in all the ways that it can be being.

This forces us to consider the rather bizarre notion that some sort of primordial form of awareness is inherent in being itself. Only with such an awareness could being perceive itself in many ways, and only in perceiving itself in many ways can being give rise to the relativity of perspectives that leads to perspectives of being like our universe.

Then I would have to go into my crude dynamics and it becomes more of a crude scientific theory touching on general relativity, black holes, photons, and a bit of quantum strangeness based on this metaphysic.

What did Rosedale really say?

Little over a month ago Loki (Lokifluff Clarity) and I were listening to Philip Rosedale’s (SL name Philip Linden) presentation. Rosedale is the founder and former CEO of Linden Labs. He was talking about what Second life could offer for corporate customers. It appears that LL has decided to start marketing SL more to corporate customers from now on. But after listening to Rosedale I was rather puzzled, how does LL intend to actually approach companies? Does SL have anything to offer to the RL companies? I thought I have to write down some of my thoughts, beacuse it was so confusing.

It seems that I’m not the only one wondering the same question. Christiana Zenovka gave me at PH a link to an article, discussing how corporations are actually abandoning second life today http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/technology/5078444/Second-Lifes-span-is-virtually-over-as-firms-decide-to-get-real.html . Here is also another article discussing the same thing http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10217315-36.html and google found many more. The corporate exodus seems to be really happening… and I think it’s easy to understand why: If you are a second life citizen, how much time do you spend in some dull corporate sims that promote their boring products. I have visited Gibson guitar company sim once and collected a bunch of freebie guitar imitations there (very nice looking btw), but that’s about it.

Now LL’s new approach is to offer SL as a platform for corporate communications, and that’s what Rosedale seemed to be talking about, too. You can actually check it out yourself, since I found out that his talk is available at http://blip.tv/file/1853232 . If you look at 27:30, the camera turns so that you can see me and Loki in the front row! There are also records of the talkback in local chat at http://www.gronstedtgroup.com/pdf/philip%20linden%20talk%20-%20back%20chat%20-%20Notepad.pdf . If you search for me or Lokifluff there, you can find our questions. Unfortunately Rosedale did not answer either of us :-(

I and Loki listening to Rosedale (Philip Linden). The picture doesn't show it, but we had our GMT now! group tags on us :-)

Now what did Rosedale offer to companies? Not much (if anything) I would say. On the contrary, I would criticize his presentation in many ways:

- He was mostly talking about the user experience; SL would supposedly be great for corporate use because it allows the participants to have a visual interaction. Visual interaction would make it more engaging for brains compared to normal teleconferences (….sounded a bit weird to me, but Loki said that in principle he was making kind of sense)…. But hold on! I have every now and then video-conferences and I use MS-netmeeting to share presentations. And I don’t really need anything more remarkable than a camera and skype to establish that. So there is quite enough visual connection and it would be with rl personas rather than avatars. When I am dealing with rl businesses, it would seem even preferable for a serious person like me (…..awww don’t laugh!), so I wasn’t impressed by Rosedale's claims.

- Security is of course a main concern for companies. Without some kind of a guaranteed security and advanced VPN system there is hardly any chance to make a company to discuss it’s internal businesses in SL. And what if someone is able to spy anyway, who will be responsible? I wasn’t sure from Rosedale’s speech whether VPN works already in SL or are they only planning for it. But I think that if LL wants to promote SL as a communication platform for internal meetings, it cannot tolerate one single industrial espionage incident, or it will be abandoned by everyone immediately. Does this sound like a lucrative prospect from LL's point of view? Is internal corporate communication really that interesting business, that it would be worth the risk and investment?

- Rosedale was making also some very soft arguments about how internal promoters of SL, working inside companies could plead to CEO’s “vanity” in making her/his company to be one of the pilot users of SL. Come on Philip, don’t be childish! Even the most vain CEOs will always want to have a good financial justification why would they invest in something risky and new like SL still is. If you are not able to show where the value is in terms of hard cash calculations and what is the return on investment and that there aren’t risks….I doubt it is very hard to get any CEO to signoff for an SL type of an experiment, especially these days when cost control is everywhere tighter than ever. To be honest, I would personally advice LL to cut that kind of cheap sales talk completely when talking to actual business people working in actual corporations, since although some well presented but silly nonsense might sell to VCs (= vulture capitalists known also as venture capitalists) that are specialized in buying and selling “visionary” start-up stories, real world business people will always want to look at the substance, too. LL need to be able to show clearly what is the expected ROI, show successful case studies or a clear demonstrations of getting measurable strategic value, like getting ahead of competition. I would think that soft sales talk, like pleading CEO’s vanity, would only scare away corporate people.

- I was actually very surpised that Rosedale didn’t tell any concrete success stories about how SL has been used in business. I mean although there aren’t probably very many such stories yet, there must be some at least. For example, I heard from Nirak Treschichot at PH how SL has been used to test the functionality of hospital designs by creating making 3-D models in SL and then making avatars to use it as if it was in actual hospital use. Why did Rosedale not refer to any such cases? There must be other successes, too? If LL does not use successful cases as examples in their marketing towards corporate world, I find it very unlikely that they actually win any new corporate customers. I think that this was a big flaw in Rosedale’s presentation. If I was LL, I would collect a portfolio of success stories and use it as the key marketing collateral when approaching actual companies.

- I was also somewhat put off by the format of the event. Although there was obviously a humorous quirk in how Rosedale’s avatar Philip Linden was in the spotlights, like some kind of a messias bringing the joyous message of SL and tens of “fanboys” (Smoke Wijaya’s expression) cheering every word, I think it was somewhat tacky. The fanboys spammed so much that I didn’t notice any critical or more interesting question to get an answer really. Not good enough Philip! If you want to get serious with corporations….get serious first, answer also the difficult questions.

So based on that presentation, I didn’t get at all convinced that LL will make any progress with the corporate world, at least with the approaches they seemed to have today in selling SL to companies. On the contrary, I got the impression that they have run out of ideas… which I think is a pity! Although I am not planning to use SL for anything else but for socializing, I’m still very interested in how it could be used for business purposes, too. There is something magical with SL, as all of us SL citizens know. We love it and we hang in there an unbelievable amount of time…so I think we all would like to see SL grow and flourish.

But could it be that LL is going astray when trying to to win the RL corporate world? I think they might be. Although I’m sure that the LL management talks about this daily and like in most US companies have zillions of time wasting and badly conducted strategy meetings, where people come unprepared and talk mostly off agenda, …ooops, sorry…. hem….*calm down Q* … they should ask once more if the RL corporate scene is really worth the effort, with things like visual skype as a competitor? Where is the business model for avatar based visual corporate communication, really? SL as a marketing scene by making boring business sims has been proven to fail already.

And then there is the question of the sex scene in SL. Most RL corporations don’t want to be associated with the adult scene….since you never know that if you setup a serious corporate sim serving a conservative clientele, that suddenly there wouldn’t be a porn sim right next to your location =). So now LL is planning to move all adult content to a separate continent, where the users would need to show age verification. Perhaps that would be a good idea in principle, but it should have been realized at the beginning of SL. Pushing the separate continent idea at this point will certainly not get through without huge protests. And what’s the worst, the protesters would likely be among the oldest and probably the best paying customers from LL point of view. So if I was an LL business planner, my first reaction would be to be very cautious throwing away the old customers, before there is a clear concept how you are going to attract the new ones….but based on what I have seen so far there doesn’t seem to be much on the table when RL corporations are concerned.

The second point I think LL seems to be missing with it’s new strategy, is that the main attraction for many is that SL can be a true Second life! It allows a person to have a second identity that is not connected directly to the responsibilities of the first one. For example I, Quintessential Sorbet, can be much more straightforward with many issues related to corporate world than my counterpart in meatspace. She needs to think what her employer might think of her activities as an economical columnist, and she has so many personal boundary conditions here and there….poor girl =). I think that the concept of a concrete Second personality was on of the key elements in the original vision when SL was created. I would not abandon that vision for the sakes of hypotethical RL corporate customers, especially when given the competition from skype and other netconferencing systems, the opportunity seems very questionable. Why not rely on the original SL vision, allow people to develop their second identities and build SL businesses that are truly derived from the platform’s opportunities. Phil Ember had found me a link about an SL clothing factory http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/at-sundance-a-second-life-sweatshop-is-art/ whics seems almost like a sweat shop, actual people slaving on a moving belt, creating IP for the company. Check it out, it’s pretty amazing!

Cheers
Quin

I added Christiana's original link. Thanks for finding it for me Loki!

What’s wrong with the contemporary economics, Part II: Futility of utility

Most of the contemporary microeconomic theories rely one way or the other on the concept of utility. Wikipedia defines utility as a measure of the relative satisfaction from, or desirability of, consumption of various goods and services. Given this measure, one may speak meaningfully of increasing or decreasing utility, and thereby explain economic behavior in terms of attempts to increase one's utility [1].

My original plan was to write about how difficult the concept of utility is from a practical economics point of view. I have not seen “utility” booked in any balance sheet, written in any law that governs commerce in any country or written in any real life contract. Utility is obviously a purely theoretical concept, but is it useful for anything, or can it even be well defined? I (among many others) doubt that it can.

But it turned out that there was already so much material on the internet about the criticism of the use of utility that I think it’s ok just to refer to [1] for the most part, becuase criticism was based partly on what someone had wrote there: Another criticism [about utility] come from the assertion that neither cardinal nor ordinary utility are empirically observable in the real world. In case of cardinal utility it is impossible to measure the level of satisfaction "quantitatively" when someone consume/purchase an apple. In case of ordinal utility, it is impossible to determine what choice were made when someone purchase an orange. Any act would involve preference over infinite possibility of set choices such as (apple, orange juice, other vegetable, vitamin C tablets, exercise, not purchasing, etc),
where cardinal utility is the magnitude of utility differences as an ethically or behaviorally significant quantity and ordinal utility describes just ranking and not strength of preferences.

Now maybe utility would have some use in philosophy, sociology or behavioral science, (…I don’t know…). But in economics it just seems like a messy concept. People have tried to quantify utility so that it could be used in economics by postulating an expected utility hypothesis, which defines utility as a function of expected return on investment (ROI), risks, and personal preferences….sounds rather good at first hearing, doesn’t it? But it has been shown to lead to a several paradoxes like St Petersburg paradox [2], Allais paradox [3] or Ellsberg paradox [4] for starters.

And what’s worse, people just don’t think in terms of utility in practice. On the other hand concepts like (expected) ROI, risks and personal or strategic preferences are real things that people use in their decision-making. So why would it be so difficult to postulate a utility function that would work as a “preference relation” over a set of possible decisions? In fact making such a relation in theory is not so hard. The great mathematician John von Neumann together with economist Oskar Morgenstern already did it (see for example [5]…although there are surely easier to read references somewhere, too =), and their theory looks quite convincing at the first glance….but is it really of any use? I think not, because
a) the concept of “utility” is still messy. Although people do take into account ROIs, risks, and personal preference, I think it is hard to think of a universal relation that would apply to all people in the same way.
b) In order for the expected utility theory to truly describe real life, people are expected to make decisions always rationally….but in practice they do not. People act also “irrationally” or unpredictably, even in corporate decision-making.
c) Making decisions in business is never dependent on one party alone. In order for commerce to take place, you need at least two parties in each individual transaction (see my quantum theory of economics :-)). Thus there is always also the element of negotiation present in every transaction.
d) Even if we would not care about a)-c) the paradoxes of [2]-[4] would still be there. That alone should be a logical proof that an expected utility function is not a satisfactory concept to derive higher level economic theories. Logically one should scrap it!

So why do we use Utility at all? Wouldn’t it be ok just to operate with more easily definable entities like ROI, risks, personal preferences, reference valuations, negotiation strategies, etc….? I think yes it would be and that’s just what is happening in practice too. For example, if you go to Nasdaq internet pages, and take a financial analysis of any given company, you can see the quarterly balance sheet valuations, ROI, risk and other analyses and make your own judgments based on that. But utility has been hypothesized in order to get started with a theory, that would enable a way to connect theories in a vertical dimension, from the micro to macro level. But perhaps there is also something in the rigidity in the ways we like to think. To me it seems that in the history of thought we have had a tendency to create unnecessary concepts like “god” or “space-time ether” or “utility”, that would explain the behavior of the world around us, even if the concept used in the explanation would be fictitious or a fallacy ;-)

So I would propose to free our minds and get rid of the concept of utility in making economic theory. I propose to view this as an analogy to the development of physics theory since wouldn’t it be a little similar to getting rid of the ether hypothesis a hundred years ago? As it turned out there was no need for a universal space-time ether or universal co-ordinates, and in the same way I think there is no need for a universal expected utility function.

Well, maybe the space-time ether analogy is disputable, but I would still like to comment one statement when comparing physics and economics that I have heard many times both in rl and sl, namely the claim that economics would be somehow more difficult to model than physics… but is it really?

If you take the microscopic “quantum” approach to economy, I think the processes in economics are very well defined, because they are defined in the law! The laws governing individual transactions are usually reasonably unambiguous whereas I think the physical theories are constantly challenged. Namely how well are the elementary interactions between elementary particles known really? Aren’t they actually under continuous study in particle colliders and nuclear physics? Perhaps one could claim that the mechanisms of economic interactions are even better known, since they are defined in writing!

Of course the operators in economics are people, who are complicated creatures, but on the other hand, if you think about how the natural science experiments are interpreted...isn’t it also people who operate as cognitive processors making observations, interpreting results and making judgments? And if we talk about technology, isn’t it the often irrational people who design the various gizmos for different purposes, and these purposes are defined by human imagination…sounds rather complicated to me!!!I have not thought very thoroughly how good these analogies to physics really are (or if the analogies actually serve any purpose for that matter) but intuitively it would seem to me that there are grounds to challenge the statement “economics is harder to model than natural sciences”. I think there are good arguments to claim the opposite!

Ursäkta om jag verkade lite provokativt den här gången, men det var bara ivrigheten att få dessa idéer utskriven nånstans =).
Hälsningar till alla SL vänner!

Quin

References:

[1] internet page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility, April 6th 2009
[2] internet page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_paradox, April 6th 2009
[3] internet page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allais_paradox, April 6th 2009
[4] internet page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsberg_paradox, April 6th 2009
[5] internet page http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/essays/uncert/vnmaxioms.htm, April 6th 2009

thanks again for help Strider

What’s wrong with the contemporary economics, Part I: Models are bad

The quantum theory of economics (QTE) seems to have provoked people (because I provoked them lol) . So I need to explain what motivated me to work on QTE, and why in my opinion contemporary microeconomic models are not working.

Well..it’s a long story…because they are wrong in so many ways!

But let me start first with other testimonials. I’m far from being alone in thinking that current economic theories are poorly created. Besides having met several natural scientists who mock economics as a pseudoscience, many economists themselves are skeptical about the predicting power of today's theories. Every year the Swedish academy of Science hands out a Nobel prize in economics, indicating that it should be as much a science as physics or medicine. Yet Noble laureates of economics are never invited together with the other Nobel prize winners to the annually televised discussions about humankind’s future, opened by the king of Sweden, …and I used to wonder why that was so. As a young business student I was rather annoyed about it.

Of course the Nobel prize in economics is not an actual Nobel prize, since it is funded by the National bank of Sweden (and not the Nobel foundation) and it is actually called Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne, but on the other hand it is decided by the same academy that makes decisions about the other prizes. So you would expect that it would have the same prestige. Yet many have opposed it, like the famous Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal or the long time Swedish minister of finance Kjell-Olof Feldt. Even one of the Nobel prize winners, Friedrich Hayek, said in his acceptance speech that if he had been asked whether there should have been a Nobel prize in economics at all, he would have voted against it, because he didn’t think economics was a ”proper science”.

Well distinguished gentlemen...I am sorry to say, but I think you are wrong! There definitely should be an award for economics similar to those for physics or medicine. Economics is a huge part of our lives and defines, just as well as the natural sciences or medicine, how our societies and wellbeing work. I would just like to see them fund their particle colliders or neurosurgical equipment without some economic apparatus working in the society that enabled them to build their gizmos in the first place. So the study of economics is a science...or it should be at least.

But I can understand why they were critical. Both the macroeconomic and microeconomic models are so far from reality that for many they seem completely useless. Like to me for instance. I participate in business life on a daily basis and need to deal with prices, valuations and how they are being calculated in real life. I never use any microeconomic models, couldn’t use them because they model something that isn’t real or useful for me. They deal with ”rational agents” playing ”utility” games in a more or less linear world and the agents usually have no feedback between each other and with the system itself. But in real world where actual people negotiate or try to beat ”the system”, emotional as much as rational agents are interacting with each other and the environment to make individual deals.

Yet all sorts of microeconomic models are used everyday to create convincing predictions about the future valuations of all sorts of things…and not the least about stocks and other investment instruments. But they work really poorly. For example, NY Times organized the famous experiment with a chimpanzee as a stock analyst in the early 90s (I remember reading about it then and being tremendously impressed – it might even have affected my career choice). The chimp was blindfolded and made to "invest money" by choosing a portfolio of stocks by throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal’s list of stocks. Then the reporters asked several tens of financial analytic companies and financial advisors to recommend a portfolio, using the same amount of money. It turned out that the chimp had beaten 40 % of the professional analysts who were using the latest software based on the latest numerical models. I remember thinking: wow! There is something interesting going on here :-)

That was of course almost 20 years ago, but I doubt the models have gotten essentially any better. They are still faulty in the same ways. They model only hypothetical laboratory cases, which do not apply to the real world.. Of course one could suspect that the same should be true for physical models, but I don’t think so. I very much doubt that anyone builds technology with a physical model that is already known in advance to be insufficient or outright faulty! I would guess that rather than go straight ahead building quantitative numerical models and equations, a natural scientist would spend her time tuning the qualitative description of the model until she believes that it is taking all the phenomena, which she knows the system should exhibit, into account satisfactorily. Of course this might not be true every time a natural science theory is created, but as far as I have understood, that’s how it should go in principle. A natural scientist tries to understand the qualities of the system first, then build the model accordingly, and then test it. And if the empirical results don’t match, the description of the model is revised first and only after that the quantitative numerical model fixed.

But in economics it doesn’t seem work like that in practice. Economic models are typically polynomials of the form: Property (for example price) P = A + Bx + Cx2 +.. Then if the model does not work at some point, an economist just changes the values of coefficients A,B,C... or adds higher order terms (eg. Dx3) If the economist has read more mathematics, she might get fancy and use polynomials with differentials of the variable x instead…but it wouldn’t make the process methodologically any better. Adding coefficients just fix the previous erratic model by adding new terms based on experience, that is based on “knowledge” which is acquired fundamentally by induction, without necessarily understanding what is truly happening in the system. She would not really understand how the system should be actually described qualitatively and then using deduction what could happen within the boundary conditions the system has in real life.
What if after time T the system’s equilibrium changes so that the whole variable x gets thrown out of the window…there would be no way of knowing what will happen to property P, and what’s worse, even the whole system change would not be predicted by the model…and that’s exactly what happens practically all the time and everywhere current economic models are being used in practice.

Physicists and technologists usually are not caught that easily I think. That’s because their method is to try to build knowledge about their system by understanding everything that happens qualitatively in the system. Then through deduction and by understanding boundary conditions, make the model. Only after the model is made would they then make decisions about which details are essential and which details can be left out to simplify the numerical model, especially if it turns out to be too complicated to solve.

I’m not sure if I am able to convey my idea or if I am too idealistic about how physical modeling is used today in practice…but I’m convinced that the people creating technology would never approve the same inaccuracy and lack of realism in their physical models when they are designing their gadgets and gizmos, in the same way that financial analysts approve known unrealistic assumptions in their economic models. I have referred previously to Nicholas Nassim Taleb and his works….I recommend him again. He makes the same point much more eloquently than I ever could. I think Robert Lucas was also an early critic of the same fallacy of creating “knowledge” and economic models through induction (but he was talking about macroeconomics only) [1].

I also think that a "quantitative model driven" way of creating theory leads to a funny phenomena, that quantitative models create qualitative concepts! Since many of the economic models are created by first building polynomials based on inductive experience, the coefficients N of the new terms Nxn that are added in order to “improve” the model, are given attributes like “utility” or “indifference” or “intrinsic economic value”. Of course the attributes need to be credible sounding enough so that the users of economic models could justify their fallacy ;-) But more often than not, I am unable to relate them at all to real life business practices. And at the end the day it is in these practices that prices and economic valuations are formed in real life, isn't it?

So why do we do it?! How can we be so mistaken and let ourselves create fantasy (imaginary properties in microeconomics) from models rather than create models that would try to imitate reality? Taleb or Lucas were not at all the first ones to notice this error. For example philosopher/mathematician and the other writer of Principia Mathematica, A.N. Whitehead noticed:

It is very arguable that the science of political economy, as studied in its first period after the death of Adam Smith (1790) did more harm than good. It destroyed many economic fallacies, and taught how to think about the economic revolution then in progress. But it riveted on men a certain set of abstractions which were disastrous in their effect on the modern mentality. It dehumanized industry. There is only one good example of a general danger inherent in modern science. Its methodological procedure is exclusive and intolerant, and rightly so. It fixes attention on a definite group of abstractions, neglects everything else, and elicits every scrap of information and theory which is relevant to what has remained. The method is triumphant provided that the abstractions are judicious. But however triumphant, the triumph is within limits. The neglect of these limits leads to disastrous oversights… The methodology of reasoning requires the limitations involved in the abstract. Accordingly, the true rationalism must always transcend itself by recurrence to the concrete in search of inspiration. A self satisfied rationalism is in effect a form of anti-rationalism. It means an arbitrary halt at a particular set of abstractions. [2]

Well…that’s quite a mouthful =). I got this quote actually from Seneca Quandry and he kindly popularized it a bit:

We commit the ‘fallacy of misplaced concreteness’ when we treat our models as more real than the phenomena they are intended to represent. When natural resources don’t appear in economic models (sometimes they don’t, sometimes they do) economists may be tempted to ignore their significance. When economists do this, they are committing Whitehead’s fallacy. [3]

--- So that’s why I came up with QTE. It would an attempt to build abstractions to economy from phenomenology and empiria rather than fall too much in love with our computer models.
If I get around to it, I would also like to study the concept of “utility” in more detail. For some reason I like it even less than many other dubious concepts in economic theories. I think the invention of utility is often accredited to philosopher John Stuart Mills, but I think it is probably mathematician Daniel Bernoulli, who used it first in order to find a solution to the St Petersburg paradox. I think he failed at it though, and so has the whole concept of utility failed, at least in economic theory….but that’s another story...to be titled "What’s wrong with the contemporary economics, Part II" ;-)

Cheers for now
Quintessential

References:
[1] internet page March 30th 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique and the references therein
[2] Whitehead, A.N. 1929. Process and Reality. New York: Harper Brothers.
[3] Quandry, S. March 26th 2009, private communication

PS As before I publish this a way too prematurely, as an almost unreadable draft….but again I’m too eager to wait the 10 proof reads that I need to do always! So sorry for that.Q

PPS Edits done on April 2nd. Million thanks to Elia Scribe for help!Q