Two Summaries in Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics
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Category Archives: Albert Einstein
A System is Developed: The Achievements of Euclid, Newton, Einstein, Mendeleev, and Lonergan
Lonergan’s achievement – like the achievements of Euclid, Newton, and Einstein – was “to bring together many scattered theorems by setting up a unitary basis that would handle all of them and a great number of others as well.” Note in the excerpts below these phrases
- a field of greater generality
- an enlarged and radically different field
- scientific generalization
- (analytical) level of system
- organized system
- one single organized subject
- a determinate systematic structure
- a determinate field
- a single explanatory unity
- ultimate premises
- the stability of the sets and patterns of dynamic relationships
Consider:
Generalization comes with Newton, who attacked the general theory of motion, laid down its pure theory, identified Kepler’s and Galileo’s laws by inventing the calculus, and so found himself in a position to account for any corporeal motion known. Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galilei, and Kepler had all been busy with particular classes of moving bodies. Newton dealt in the same way with all. He did so by turning to a field of greater generality, the laws of motion, and by finding a deeper unity in the apparent disparateness of Kepler’s ellipse and Galilei’s time squared. … Similarly the non-Euclidean geometers and Einstein went beyond Euclid and Newton. … The non-Euclideans moved geometry back to premises more remote than Euclid’s axioms, they developed methods of their own quite unlike Euclid’s, and though they did not impugn Euclid’s theorems, neither were they very interested in them; casually and incidentally they turn them up as particular cases in an enlarged and radically different field. … Einstein went beyond Newton by employing the new geometries to make time an independent variable; and as Newton transformed the formulation and interpretation of Kepler’s laws, so Einstein transforms the Newtonian laws of motion. … It is, we believe, a scientific generalization of the old political economy and of modern economics that will yield the new political economy which we need. … Plainly the way out is through a more general field. [CWL 21, 6-7] Continue reading
A Philip McShane Sampler Relevant to Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics
Philip McShane had a strong background in mathematics and theoretical physics; thus he was able to understand the scientific significance of Bernard Lonergan’s macroeconomic field theory in an Einsteinian context. (See Philip McShane in Categories in the right sidebar)
First we display, in brief, key excerpts, many of which contain analogies from physics and chemistry, relevant to the science of Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics; then we show the same excerpts more fully within lengthier quotes. Continue reading
The Einsteinian Context: Curvature and Relativity
Albert Einstein, Steven Weinberg, Lillian Lieber, Douglas Giancoli, Raymond A. Serway, Bernard Lonergan, Philip McShane, Peter Burley,
.1. Introductory
Graduate students seeking a thesis topic may expand this treatment of the Einsteinian context of Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics. It should be of special interest to those having a strong background in theoretical physics and, thus, able to appreciate the analogies from physics. “Similars are similarly understood.” (CWL 3, 288/313)
Philip McShane alerted us to the resemblances between Lonergan’s context of general macroeconomic dynamics and Einstein’s context of general relativity.
(Part Two entitled Fragments) belongs almost entirely in what I call the Einsteinian context of Part Three, in contrast to the Newtonian achievement of Part One; … [CWL 21, Index, 325]
A new science has emerged. Lonergan has elevated conventional macrostatics to a macrodynamics explaining economic accelerations. (Continue reading)
The Notion of Organic Unity; Macroeconomic Field theory as a Unified, Systematic Whole
.1. Introduction
Lonergan’s treatment of the intelligibility of the plane circle provides to us a clue. In the basic insight defining the plane circle, – that all radii are equal – all the interrelated concepts tumble out together in an intelligible unity. The all-together intelligibility points to a template for explanation in the macroeconomic field; it fore-casts a singular unified intelligibility of the dynamic, organic economic process. In the sweeping comprehensive act of understanding, all the abstract explanatory conjugates explaining the dynamic economic process are “yoked” together by their functional relations to one another. The interdependencies of the flows which constitutethe whole dynamic system are grasped in a solidary whole. And the patterns of the formulation are isomorphic with the patterns in the objective, unitary economic process. The principle of unity and wholeness is a single, comprehensive intelligibility. (Continue reading)
An Einsteinian Relativistic Context: Space and Time Become Space-Time; Price and Quantity become Price-Quantity; An Abstract Set of Invariant Explanatory Relations
Contents
- .I. Relations and Relativity in General
- .II. Einstein’s Special Relativity and General Relativity
- .III Lonergan’s Double-Circuited, Pretio-Quantital Relativity Theory
- .IV. The Basic Price Spread; The Co-ordinated Relativity of Three Major Pretio-Quantital Flows and the Co-operative Relations Within Each Major Flow
- .V. The Macroeconomic Field Theory Equations
- .VI. Concerning Verification
- .VII. Miscellaneous Selections
- .VIII. Conclusion
Jason Furman’s “Bad News About the Good Inflation News”
The 3/7/2022 Wall Street Journal featured an article by Jason Furman entitled “Bad News About the Good Inflation News”. Continue reading
Frank Wilczek’s “We’re All Still Living in Euclid’s World”
The Weekend Wall Street Journal, 2/5-6/2022, featured Frank Wilczek’s (MIT) column entitled “We’re All Still Living in Euclid’s World.” The article prompts further thinking about how space, space-time, and generalized coordinates underly Bernard Lonergan’s pretio-quantital Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics, AKA Macroeconomic Field Theory. (continue reading)
The Animal Organism and the Economic Organism
CONTENTS:
- THE STUDY OF ORGANISMS – ANIMAL AND ECONOMIC
- DETERMINISM AND INDETERMINISM – DISAGREEING WITH EINSTEIN
- CORRESPONDENCE IN THE CURRENT BASIC DYNAMIC, ORGANIC PROCESS; A DETERMINATE ALGEBRAIC FUNCTION OF THE FIRST DEGREE
- CORRESPONDENCE IN THE SURPLUS DYNAMIC, ORGANIC PROCESS; AN INDETERMINATE POINT-TO-LINE CORRESPONDENCE
- AVOIDING A VICIOUS CIRCLE OF CRITICISM
- THREE IMPLICITLY-DEFINED CIRCULATORY ORGANS
- THE TRANSITION TO SYSTEMATIZATION
- THE ROLE OF MIND IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN AND THE ECONOMIC ORGANISMS
.1. THE STUDY OF ORGANISMS – ANIMAL AND ECONOMIC: (Continue reading)
Field Theory in Physics and Macroeconomics
We hope to inspire serious graduate students of economics a) to seek and achieve an understanding of “Macroeconomic Field Theory,” b) to verify empirically Lonergan’s field relations, and c) to use the explanatory field relations as the basis of influential scholarly papers.
We trace developments
- in physics from Newtonian mechanics to modern field theory, and
- in economics from Walrasian supply-demand economics to purely relational, Modern Macroeconomic Field Theory.
Key ideas include a) abstraction and implicit definition as the basis and ground of invariance in both physics and macroeconomics, b) the concept of a purely relational field, c) immanent intelligibility and formal causality, and d) the canons of parsimony and of complete explanation. We highlight some key ideas: (continue reading)