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philosophising in econ
Apr. 16th, 2010 12:57 amThe question, do we have souls
if yes, what are they. How are they, where are they, et.c.
If no, how do we develop personality? Nurture?
(is it determinism that states all this stuff goes back to electrochemical reactions in the brain? and if we knew it well enough and had big enough excel sheets we could predict and calculate reactions?)
I mean hell, we can't even figure out fluid mechanics. A little pipe is more complex than we can calculate precisely. All that stuff is done with experimental data lumped into terribly complex formulæ that are roughly more useful than not. It'll be a while before we can calculate thoughts. Although, hopefully, then I will be able to record my dreams. I've dreamt of doing that for years now.
But anyway, if we do not have souls, and have no overlying morality to accompany our actions, I see no reason why I shouldn't become some sort of bureaucrat or entrepreneur, taking advantage of anything and anyone.
Sure that'll turn a lot of people off, but there's plenty of others who can be bought with all the wealth I would accumulate.
Anyway, that seems at direct odds to my dream of teaching every kid in the states to love math and science.
I have a research prospect lined up in Atlanta for the summer. I'm super excited. I just have to figure out the logistics of 1) what do I do with my stuff in Fayetteville for three months? and 2) can I take Lola? she's looking at me as I type this, the poor darling. She's so adorable <3
It's completely ridiculous, but my hardest class has this assignment (broken up into pieces) to design a shaft for an old-model car engine (godddddddddddddddd I don't want to think about if it were modern and a V-6 instead of inline. FORCES GOING EVERY DIRECTION!!!! so many sines)
anyway, for tomorrow, we're supposed to (in groups) determine the forces and find the bearing reactions for the bearings holding the shaft the six cylinders are attached to up. The regular groups have two bearings. We have five.
A system of two linear equations is cool. We've been solving those for years. Even through 720° of crank rotation (it takes two circles to make one cycle) divided by 5° increments, that's okay, really.
However, just getting five sets of these damn equations to fit on one spreadsheet was a task of epic proportions. You have to use a different equation for each cylinder depending on what side of which bearing you're currently working with it lies, and you have to do that for all six cylinders and all five bearings. I think I got out to column AO or something.
That still just took half an hour. Once I had the equations in the cells, it was mostly copy, paste, fix whatever cells didn't change but should have or did change and shouldn't've, etc. That got me all the coefficients for the constant terms. The tricky part will be actually solving the system of equations, but hopefully someone else on my team will be able to do that in time tomorrow.
I just wanted to brag about my spatial skills.
if yes, what are they. How are they, where are they, et.c.
If no, how do we develop personality? Nurture?
(is it determinism that states all this stuff goes back to electrochemical reactions in the brain? and if we knew it well enough and had big enough excel sheets we could predict and calculate reactions?)
I mean hell, we can't even figure out fluid mechanics. A little pipe is more complex than we can calculate precisely. All that stuff is done with experimental data lumped into terribly complex formulæ that are roughly more useful than not. It'll be a while before we can calculate thoughts. Although, hopefully, then I will be able to record my dreams. I've dreamt of doing that for years now.
But anyway, if we do not have souls, and have no overlying morality to accompany our actions, I see no reason why I shouldn't become some sort of bureaucrat or entrepreneur, taking advantage of anything and anyone.
Sure that'll turn a lot of people off, but there's plenty of others who can be bought with all the wealth I would accumulate.
Anyway, that seems at direct odds to my dream of teaching every kid in the states to love math and science.
I have a research prospect lined up in Atlanta for the summer. I'm super excited. I just have to figure out the logistics of 1) what do I do with my stuff in Fayetteville for three months? and 2) can I take Lola? she's looking at me as I type this, the poor darling. She's so adorable <3
It's completely ridiculous, but my hardest class has this assignment (broken up into pieces) to design a shaft for an old-model car engine (godddddddddddddddd I don't want to think about if it were modern and a V-6 instead of inline. FORCES GOING EVERY DIRECTION!!!! so many sines)
anyway, for tomorrow, we're supposed to (in groups) determine the forces and find the bearing reactions for the bearings holding the shaft the six cylinders are attached to up. The regular groups have two bearings. We have five.
A system of two linear equations is cool. We've been solving those for years. Even through 720° of crank rotation (it takes two circles to make one cycle) divided by 5° increments, that's okay, really.
However, just getting five sets of these damn equations to fit on one spreadsheet was a task of epic proportions. You have to use a different equation for each cylinder depending on what side of which bearing you're currently working with it lies, and you have to do that for all six cylinders and all five bearings. I think I got out to column AO or something.
That still just took half an hour. Once I had the equations in the cells, it was mostly copy, paste, fix whatever cells didn't change but should have or did change and shouldn't've, etc. That got me all the coefficients for the constant terms. The tricky part will be actually solving the system of equations, but hopefully someone else on my team will be able to do that in time tomorrow.
I just wanted to brag about my spatial skills.
