The Action Axiom, true a priori?

[20000miles]

Seos: I think you are thinking this too much.

Do you think that all actions are business-economic transactions? Austrianists seem to.

Austrianists are thus wrong.

...QED!

There's a flawless proof if ever I saw one.

Seos apparently thinks my definitions of "human" and "action" are acceptable.

[Seos]

It just occurred to me that we possibly have to distinguish between

- what Seos emphasises, that I know that humans act only from my own experience; if I never went to school and learned maths I wouldn't learn that 20 + 50 = 70, or if I would make such experience I wouldn't have the means to express it;

- that on the other hand "humans act" is part of not just what we observe of other humans' behaviour, but which is presupposed and basis of society rules which we also learn by growing up in it; from criticism of our actiins from child on, praise, rewards, laughter, smile at us or sour faces, up to laws, moral and ethics which we observe and which we by this learn are based on "humans act".

In the latter systems "humans act" seems to be a priori"? In our individual observance of other individuals it probably isn't? So: a mix of both, maybe?

I wouldn't say that learn and gain experience are the same things, in fact to say so would render a priori useless. While of course all gaining of experience is learning, not all learning is gaining experience. In other words if we can't learn anything without gaining new experience then a priori can only be analytical.

As an example I have learned what the number 1462387956982375782365873461267 is, even though this is my first experience of it (I randomly typed numbers to get this number). Now in the case of '2', '+' and '=' I may have learned by example (I have 2 apples and I gain another 2 apples, I now have 4 apples) but it is also possible to learn their meanings without reference to experience at all. It is because of that that 2+2=4 is described as a priori.
It is of course much easier to teach based on common experiences.


The same cannot be said of "humans act" we not only have to learn concepts but also gain experience in order to validate "humans act".

- that on the other hand "humans act" is part of not just what we observe of other humans' behaviour, but which is presupposed and basis of society rules which we also learn by growing up in it; from criticism of our actiins from child on, praise, rewards, laughter, smile at us or sour faces, up to laws, moral and ethics which we observe and which we by this learn are based on "humans act".

Another way of showing how that isn't necessarily true is to imagine a human child brought up in a complicated holographic world that responds to the child's actions, all the other "humans" are not trying to achieve ends at all although they appear to be, and the child is raised by them as if they where, so this child's development would be no different then one raised by real acting humans.

[Seos]

Seos: I think you are thinking this too much.

Do you think that all actions are business-economic transactions? Austrianists seem to.

Austrianists are thus wrong.

Now, you're free to join every other trained economists who realise that talking about Austrianism is a waste of time as it doesn't have anything to say about pounds-and-pence decisions, as opposed to decisions like what to call your child. Indeed it refuses to even acknowledge that these two actions are fundamentally different to people.

My view of anything I disagree with is if it's wrong I should be able to show it's wrong. While it seems I will never convince 20K, it is important to debate him for the following reasons:

This being the internet someone undecided about Austrian Economics may be reading and I might sway them away.
To refine my arguments.

More importantly though the purpose of free speech is to allow false ideas to be challenged, not ignored. (Free speech where we ignore false ideas and allow them to spread is the worst possible system)

I would challenge those who deny evolution, climate change or the holocaust and while those arguments may never be won because undecideds may be watching it is important that they do not go unchallenged. If they do go unchallenged they will only grow.

If I have no arguments then my belief in evolution, climate change or the holocaust is just as valid/invalid as someone else's belief that they are untrue.

Similarly, if I had no arguments for the action axiom not being a priori then my holding my position would be no more valid than 20K's.

...QED!

There's a flawless proof if ever I saw one.

Seos apparently thinks my definitions of "human" and "action" are acceptable.

Well acceptable for this argument at least...

[feargach]

Remember, Austrianists are ignored by academic economists, and nobody cares. Because their ideas were roundly disproven decades before I was born.

Recently, Paul Krugman, nobel laureate, noticing that interesting people kept bringing up fringe economic theories which were rejected accross the political spectrum decades ago, argued that Austrian business cycle theory implies that consumption would increase during downturns, and cannot explain the empirical observation that spending in all sectors of the economy fall during a recession.

Pretty hefty argument against letting dead Austrians make our decisions for us.

And it's wiser to take this road, rather than arguing the toss over action axioms. Can any assertion about a priori actions be disproven by experimental results? If the answer is no, best to ignore it. Austrianism as a whole, however does promise that if its economic injunctions are followed to the letter, the economy will improve.

That, my friend is a very productive road to go down if you want people to realise the sham of Misesianism. Just list the prescriptions, ignore the Kantian gobbledegook about action axioms littered about the place, and show how the prescription proposed does not work in reality as it does in Mises' fevered imagination.

[20000miles]

Remember, Austrianists are ignored by academic economists, and nobody cares. Because their ideas were roundly disproven decades before I was born.

Recently, Paul Krugman, nobel laureate, noticing that interesting people kept bringing up fringe economic theories which were rejected accross the political spectrum decades ago, argued that Austrian business cycle theory implies that consumption would increase during downturns, and cannot explain the empirical observation that spending in all sectors of the economy fall during a recession.

Pretty hefty argument against letting dead Austrians make our decisions for us.

Wow feargach. Was Krugman's Slate article peer-reviewed by any chance?

Krugman doesn't even mention Mises and demonstrates he hasn't read anything by him. He plainly misrepresents the theory. Bringing up strawmen doesn't help your cause.

[142857]

Remember, Austrianists are ignored by academic economists, and nobody cares. Because their ideas were roundly disproven decades before I was born.

Mainstream academic economics just accidentally the whole economy.

You like behavioural economics, human irrationality, complex systems? I strongly recommend The Black Swan. (This is relevant to my post. Irrelevant, but also enjoyable if you'd like, and a little more populist, is Freakonomics)

In a young science like economics, particularly one undergoing a gargantuan paradigm shift, appeal to mainstream authority hardly assists any sort of cause.

Here's Benoit Mandelbrot (pioneer of fractal geometry, this guy understands complex systems in a deep way) and Taleb (writer of TBS) on where the world currently lies with the current smorgasbord of widely accepted theories.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3zZ6qNWeGw"]YouTube - The REAL Maverick: Present Economy worse than Depression[/ame]

[Seos]

And it's wiser to take this road, rather than arguing the toss over action axioms. Can any assertion about a priori actions be disproven by experimental results? If the answer is no, best to ignore it. Austrianism as a whole, however does promise that if its economic injunctions are followed to the letter, the economy will improve.

That, my friend is a very productive road to go down if you want people to realise the sham of Misesianism. Just list the prescriptions, ignore the Kantian gobbledegook about action axioms littered about the place, and show how the prescription proposed does not work in reality as it does in Mises' fevered imagination.

Should Chicago School still be ignored?

Was the "mainstream's" policy of ignoring Chicago School successful?

[Christel]

As an example I have learned what the number 1462387956982375782365873461267 is, even though this is my first experience of it (I randomly typed numbers to get this number). Now in the case of '2', '+' and '=' I may have learned by example (I have 2 apples and I gain another 2 apples, I now have 4 apples) but it is also possible to learn their meanings without reference to experience at all. It is because of that that 2+2=4 is described as a priori.
It is of course much easier to teach based on common experiences.


The same cannot be said of "humans act" we not only have to learn concepts but also gain experience in order to validate "humans act".

Another way of showing how that isn't necessarily true is to imagine a human child brought up in a complicated holographic world that responds to the child's actions, all the other "humans" are not trying to achieve ends at all although they appear to be, and the child is raised by them as if they where, so this child's development would be no different then one raised by real acting humans.[/QUOTE]

For me learning and gaining experience is indistinguishible. Both mean actually the same.

But re your holographic humans, and the robots appearing to be human you mentiioned on the other thread: I feel there is something wrong in these examples.
You must have something that makes you rightly distinguish between humans and artifical humans, lookalikes/actalikes, but not the same. So I think one shouldn't use the latters to come to decisions about true humans('s actions).

Now the question occurs to me:

"Humans act" has a subject and a verb. In which lies the a priori part?

Do we know a priori what humans are? And we synthetically know that amongst other characteristics they act?
Or do we know a priori what acts are, and we know additionally that humans frequently perform them?

[feargach]

Should Chicago School still be ignored?

Was the "mainstream's" policy of ignoring Chicago School successful?

The Chicago School had a somewhat coherent theory, that could at least predict and explain some events, and could withstand a certain amount of mathematical scrutiny.

So it would have been wrong to ignore them.

The Chicago School ripped the Austrianists to shreds on multiple occasions, of course. Friedman spent a lot of time pointing out the schoolboy errors of these neophytes who were such an embarrassment to the field of conservative economics.

The Chicago School have been disproved by the events of the last 24 months. The Austrian school hasn't predicted anything in the last 50 years that was borne out by events.

They are not even economists. At best they are commentators on economic events. All economists use mathematics, or at the very least understand them.

[20000miles]

The Chicago School had a somewhat coherent theory, that could at least predict and explain some events, and could withstand a certain amount of mathematical scrutiny.

So it would have been wrong to ignore them.

The Chicago School ripped the Austrianists to shreds on multiple occasions, of course. Friedman spent a lot of time pointing out the schoolboy errors of these neophytes who were such an embarrassment to the field of conservative economics.

The Chicago School have been disproved by the events of the last 24 months. The Austrian school hasn't predicted anything in the last 50 years that was borne out by events.

They are not even economists. At best they are commentators on economic events. All economists use mathematics, or at the very least understand them.

Oh dear...

I love to bring up the late 1960s, where the Friedmanites and Keynesians were claiming that if gold were to be delinked from the dollar, the price of gold would fall to its non-monetary value: $6. Austrians, knowing that this was garbage, argued that the price of gold would in fact rise. No need to remid you who was right.

You don't get many "laboritary" style experiments in economics, but this one is right up there.