[lit-ideas] Re: Popper's 'Philosophy of Mind' I
- From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 07:49:43 -0700 (PDT)
As I understand it, Popper is about falsifying scientific ideas, which by
definition are rational. Soros is about making money, by definition
irrational, often even criminal, behavior. At best, making money is based
in 'animal instincts,' i.e., greed, herding behavior, etc. (by big and small,
which makes the much promoted idea of the rational self correcting market total
bunk). Therefore as I understand it, Popperian constructs would not apply to
Soros's money making, since big money always involves fraud. There's nothing
scientific about big money. However, for what it's worth it might be argued
that Soros was interacting with his environment in an evolutionary interplay,
taking advantage of changes around him.
Soros himself is typical of people who make mountains of money by not always
upfront means then donating to causes. Since he believes in my causes, I
rather like Soros. Soros has to my knowledge shut down his hedge fund and is
only handling family money. I heard him interviewed once. He had quite the
case of depression and somehow came out on the other side, saw that money was
not making him happy and began giving it away, getting satisfaction from
promoting the causes of liberal democracy. Essentially, though, he
failed. Even his money was no match for the Republican P.R. machine.
Just to ramble a bit, Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, now is on a
campaign to bring toilets to the billions who don't have them, and from what I
read, don't want them. They actually need a P.R. campaign to convince people
they'll be sexy if they use toilets. (Hey, they convinced billions they're
sexy if they smoke.) The lack of sanitation is, in addition to factory
farming, another major cause of super resistant bacteria, MRSA, VRSA and the
one coming out of India right now, really a nasty one. Bacteria would have
evolved resistance eventually anyway, but much more slowly if all conditions
weren't so animal spirits driven. Assume a can opener, as they say. It really
should be termed human spirts. Animals it could be argued are always rational.
Andy
________________________________
From: John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 8:34 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Popper's 'Philosophy of Mind' I
Thanks, Donal.
Just curious, do you have any thoughts about the use and/or abuse of Popper by
his most economically successful disciple, George Soros?
John
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