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Why Most Macroeconomists Haven’t Yet Flocked to Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics
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Category Archives: Theoretical Physics
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)
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)
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)
Five Why’s
The Abstract and Concrete Components of Science (Brief Item #89)
[9/22/2020] (Bernard Lonergan, Albert Einstein) Because insights arise with reference to the concrete, mathematicians need pen and paper, teachers need blackboards, pupils have to perform experiments for themselves, doctors have to see patients, trouble-shooters have to travel to the spot, people with a mechanical bent take things apart to see how they work. But because the significance and relevance of insight goes beyond any concrete problem or application, men formulate abstract sciences with their numbers and symbols, their technical terms and formulae, their definitions, postulates, and deductions. Thus, by its very nature, insight is the mediator, the hinge, the pivot. It is insight into the concrete world of sense and imagination. Yet what is known by insight, what insight adds to sensible and imagined presentations, finds its adequate expression only in the abstract and recondite formulations of the sciences. [CWL 3, 6/30] [#89] (Click here for previous “Single Paragraphs” or “Brief Items”)
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.
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
Theoretical Breakthroughs of Euclid, Newton, Hilbert, Einstein, and Lonergan
To help the reader gain an appreciation of Lonergan’s achievement of Modern Macroeconomic Field Theory we will, in each section, print leading excerpts, then highlight the key concepts of those excerpts. We will comment on the historically-significant advances in geometry of Euclid and Hilbert, in physics of Newton and Einstein, and in macroeconomics of Lonergan.
- Euclid’s great achievement was his rigorous deduction of geometry.
- Hilbert’s great achievement was his employment of implicit definition to reorder Euclid’s geometry.
- Newton’s two great achievements were unifying the isolated insights of Galileo and Kepler into a unified system of mechanics and his invention of the calculus.
- One of the great achievements of Einstein was the invention of the field theories of Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Gravitation.
- One of Lonergan’s several great achievements was his systematization of macroeconomic phenomena in his Modern Macroeconomic Field Theory. He combined the technique of implicit definition introduced by Hilbert and the concept of a field theory developed by Faraday and Einstein; and he developed an explanatory macroeconomics, which is general, invariant, and relevant in any instance. (Continue reading)
The Wise Person Puts Questions In Their Right Order
In any analysis there is a right order of questions; and to violate this order is to invite misunderstanding, myth, and disaster. To indicate the wisdom in Lonergan’s analysis, we present excerpts, mainly from his CWL 12, which mandate clearly, for himself and for us, that one’s method and one’s heuristic necessitate putting questions in their right order. The precepts apply whether one is doing physics, economics, philosophy or theology. Continue reading