Einstein and DIM

In the context of the DIM Theory and understanding how a culture is influenced, I think that it is interesting to consider the example of Albert Einstein.

My making comments on this subject require some disclaimers. After all, I am not a physicist nor an historian. What I can list as credentials, besides having read original and secondary material on the subject, are the graduate level courses I took on the history and philosophy of science. Albeit, that was several years ago, decades. So, what I have to say cannot be considered anything more than a suggestion,

LP’s analysis of Einstein concludes that the originator of the Theory of Relativity is an M1, i.e., Einstein sees the world of ideas as being fundamental, and the physical world as real, but dependent upon, or at least secondary to ideas. I won’t duplicate LP’s reasoning here. It is clearly presented in the book, The Dim Hypothesis.

If you contrasted Einstein with Descartes, also an M1, you would see that the earlier philosopher leans very much toward his M side, while Einstein leans more toward the I, while both are M1.

A good friend commented to me recently that he was taught in graduate school that Einstein based his physics on the physical world, i.e., Einstein used induction and thus was an I. I think that there is some grounds for that view. But that seems to conflict with LP’s conclusion that Einstein is an M1.

Consider Einstein’s physics without the relativist observer stuff or what he has to say about science. As a description of the physical world, Einstein’s physics has been put to many tests. To my knowledge, every prediction has been proven to be accurate. His science has a significant degree of truth, of correspondence to physical reality.

In his excellent book on induction, The Logical Leap, David Harriman points out that the beginning of good science is for the thinker to be thoroughly familiar with what is known at that point, i.e., he has to know the facts discovered. For a human, of course, that means an integrated, conceptual knowledge, well grounded in its connection with the real world. Einstein, in order to so thoroughly account for the real world had to have a truly objective knowledge of it prior to his discoveries. I think that his wide understanding is well established in that when he got around to publishing his thoughts in 1905, he offered five papers on five different subject which were all ground breaking and influential for good, scientific, objective reasons. Einstein knew his facts and his concepts objectively.

You can’t have a true scientific theory without induction. You can’t dream it up. Einstein used rationality on the physical world to arrive at his theory. No matter how you try to rummage through his comments, interpret his writings, or analyze his mathematics, the incontrovertible fact that his physics has consistently truthfully predicted what we then observe is prime facie evidence that induction was used. Again, compare him to Descartes, who almost completely dreamed up his physics which was completely off the mark.

Still, Einstein is an M1. Why? Because he, Einstein, said he was. LP in analyzing what Einstein said, not what Einstein did to reach his theory. Einstein’s influence on the culture is what he said, what he wrote. Maybe some people noticed that what he said was not consistent with the process by which he discovered his theories. But culturally, that is a minor detail. Einstein’s influence is the result of his statements and writing. The cultural product is the completed, published work. That is true even for the realm of physics, a subject in which you would hope the scientists could tell the difference. But Einstein’s legacy has been his comments about the esthetics of a theory, its elegance, not correspondence with the physical world. That cultural influence is the result of what someone says and not what they do is consistent with what we see resulting from Kant, for example. Kant created a complete philosophical system, a vast integration, with a purpose. In his method, Kant was a Platonist. As an influence, Kant legacy is that systems, integration, and purpose are bad. He is the destroyer, not the integrator.

All of which leads me back to my recent blog post about in implication of the DIM Theory on our work to change the culture. Again, it is not what we do, but what we say and write that will have influence. We cannot expect our example or an implication to be understood or to be influential. We must include within our speeches and articles our I mode in some explicit, clear, and unambiguous form. We don’t want to preach. It isn’t necessary that we put in the philosophical support (it is available). But we do need to include at least part of the vital fact that we are looking at the physical world, thinking about it in a logical, objective manner, and that we are integrating as broadly as we are capable. That is the mode we absolutely need to communicate.

An Implication of The DIM Theory for Activism

One important element of the philosophy of Objectivism is that it has a purpose: that of living as a human in this world. Each insight of Objectivism has implications about what a man should do to achieve happiness and prosperity.

The DIM Theory is an excellent application of philosophy, and, in the breath of its reach, it is fundamental in understanding how philosophy underlies a culture. I think that it has implications for us.

I want to expand the response I have seen to Dr. Peikoff’s book. From what I have seen, the idea is that LP has given us a prediction and we now sit and watch to see if it proves out. LP makes clear in the book’s closing pages that he isn’t suggesting giving up and that his prediction isn’t a mathematical certainty, but other than clarifying who our ultimate enemy is, people have acted as if there is nothing more to say.

I disagree. I think that the book, in its identifications of fundamental movers of cultural change, has given us a greater understanding of what we should be doing. Our actions to mold our culture should be amended by what we learned from LP. Our activism needs to include a specific purpose to be more effective.

By activism I mean action (meaning attempts to persuade) taken to change the culture, which I think should include actions taken to keep things together long enough for cultural change to occur.

Dr. Leonard Peikoff’s (LP) theory is that the fundamental fact of a culture is its attitude towards integration, i.e., concept formation and the structure of knowledge. Consequently, to change a culture, one has to change its mode of integration.

The approach to integration is in turn based upon the culture’s intellectual leaders position on two philosophic issues: the nature of reality and how man acquires knowledge. If one understands correctly these two issues, one will be lead to a rational, i.e., reality based, method of integration.

It follows then that the direct approach to changing a culture is to address these issues: integration, existence, and reason.

The proof for this conclusion is in The DIM Hypothesis and the writings of Ayn Rand and LP. I do not look at my reasoning as deductive despite appearances.

To apply the implication of LP’s insight requires much thought. I regard what I have to say as a small beginning.

In most cases, addressing the fundamental questions isn’t beneficial. In other words, don’t preach. It is often enough to push rational integration, LP’s I mode, by example, i.e., by referring to reality, facts, and at least implying that thought, a process is necessary to understand an issue. It won’t help to be too subtle. The implication has to be clear.

One way to do this that comes to my mind is to always concritize. Refer to facts connected with an abstraction, and point out that one without the other is meaningless.

My thought is that one should include some aspect of the fundamental issues in every written or spoken statement. You need not always refer to integration. Including the independence and absoluteness of physical reality or the requirement of a rational thought process would also be valuable.

I do not mean to say that addressing issues of rights, morality, government activities, and irrationality in general aren’t worthwhile. I am saying that the more the issues affecting cultural change are included in your arguments, the more impact our efforts will have.

The DIM Hypothesis is an Example of Philosophy as Science

Ayn Rand often called philosophy a science. We know that when she did not use allegory in her writing about fundamental ideas. When she said science she meant science, not “science,” or science like. She called physics and biology “special” sciences. They studies selected, well-defined aspects of reality. Philosophy studies reality and man in the broadest respect, but with the same cognitive framework, tools, and criteria of proof as any science. Philosophy is knowledge, and is acquired like all knowledge is: by a specific process called induction, i.e., using reason on the material provided by our senses.

Dr. Peikoff’s methodology is explicitly as rigorous as any, rational scientist. When one takes into account the context within which he is working, he is as exact as one could be.

His aim in the book is to demonstrate that there is evidence for his hypothesis and that his conclusion is warranted, i.e., is proven, as much as existing evidence allows.

He then states that his theory could be disproved if the results resulting from the theory do not occur. If a prediction fails to occur, the error is in the theory or the proof, not reality. (There are potential events in the real world that could prevent the prediction of an M2 dictatorship, but they would be consistent with the theory and its recognition of man’s free will.)

The DIM Hypothesis is a scientific book. To think about it any other way is to miss the point and not understand the power of its conclusions. Being scientific, being objective, using reason is a process of acquiring knowledge. Specific applications that use more precise tools applicable for the subject matter aren’t more scientific or have conclusions with any more significance or intellectual power than other branches of knowledge. They are merely a different context and allow greater precision.

Philosophy sets the standards for all branches of knowledge, including applied philosophy. There are few books or arguments recognizing or using philosophy as a science. It is a sign of man’s failure to grow and his willingness to accept nonsense.

A Suggested Perspective on the DIM book

I expect that most people read The DIM Hypothesis and come away focused upon LP’s conclusion, his prediction on the direction of U.S. culture. Certainly, LP does himself center the book on the goal of reaching a prediction. The force of his prediction is magnified by the fact that the book is closely reasoned and objective, i.e., it is based in the facts of the reality of human history and human nature. The book is itself an excellent example of the scientific method.

I, however, want to focus your attention on a different perspective, what I perceive as an implication. I want you to think about what LP has to say about how cultural, philosophic change occurs. I want to examine the implications and proscriptive insights we can gain. What does the book mean for our own actions? Can we do things, our attempts to achieve our own view of a proper culture, better, based upon what LP has to teach us about cultural change? What do we do differently? What are we doing that is effective?

I have one specific idea in mind, which I will present here in the next few days. But I want you to think about this perspective first.

Austerity versus Growth in Europe

In my last post I discussed the immediate lesson we could learn from the “austerity” programs occurring in Europe today. In this post I want to talk about some of the events in Europe and suggest some future results.

No doubt my readers aren’t really taken in by the emphatic declaration by European socialist politicians that the government planning must include growth, and not just reductions of government spending, otherwise known as “austerity.” All of this is government speak, that is, none of these terms mean what they rationally means when it comes out of the mouth of the European politician or bureaucrats. It reminds me of Clinton’s first term, when someone convinced Bill that investment was a vital element in the economy. For the next year or so every government initiative that Clinton proposed was called an investment. Every action that the European politician wants to take will be called a growth program.

We should know that the Europeans do not know and go out of their way to evade what it is that causes increases in production and wealth. In their minds the cause of all that is good is the government. They do not understand why their economies aren’t performing as they want them to. They don’t understand that all of their laws have cut down economic activity. In the way of what they are calling reforms they have done very little to make actual growth possible. I read somewhere recently that Greek bureaucrats require an overwhelming amount of stuff form someone applying for a business license, including a stool sample. On the episode of “No Reservations” filmed in Lisbon, I leaned that Portuguese agriculture was forced to stop profitable farming in several crops by EU protectionist regulations (protecting the French and Italians). The number of regulations and interference in business in Europe on the EU, country, and state level is many times what it is in the U.S. None of this is being addressed. What has been “reformed” to some small degree in a few countries is a few regulations that made it impossible to fire someone. There is probably more, but minor, and unreported in the general media.

Austerity has been the watchword in Europe recently. Let’s be clear on what that means. It means that the national government’s budget deficit has to be kept below a certain percentage of the country’s GDP, on the order of three percent, according to the recently passed EU law. It doesn’t actually mean that a surplus has to be achieved or that the country’s government debt has to be reduced. It only means that the debt can’t grow at more than a certain rate, which is deemed to be a level that an economy can comfortably service (which probably assumes interest rates kept artificially low). If a country was actually productive, keeping government spending to that level might not pose much of a problem, until the economy wasn’t productive any more. However, for different reasons in each country, with the exception of Germany and the smaller northern euro zone countries, they have been spending much more and driven their debts much higher (Italy’s debt wasn’t that high, but its deficit was, driving interest rates higher). Since their economies are very dependent upon government spending, when the spending slowed the economy began to contract, people’s income dropped, and greater numbers became unemployed. People became unhappy.

Within this context it makes sense to want to see the economy grow. Economic growth would create more jobs and ultimately move the economy to prosperity. Growth basically comes from letting people produce and seek higher income and wealth. That is not what the European politician calling for growth has in mind. He still sees the government as the prime mover. He wants to increase government activity and government spending. He wants to move away from austerity toward what was going on before this mess. He wants to pretend that the mess doesn’t exist. He wants that favorite of all government boondoggles and fountain of spoils, infrastructure projects. But building a bridge is not growth. (BO wants to fix schools and put in wiring for the internet.) So far, the programs that I have heard proposed will not cause economic growth.

The populations in Europe are apparently supporting these “pro-growth,” socialist politicians. France just elected one. Greece will at least come close to pushing out the politicians who voted in austerity. The Greek alternative is someone who wants to renege on the country’s sworn commitments. Spain is trying, but failing to reign in its spending and the population is angry about the results of that attempt. And in a recent German state election, a couple of socialist parties opposed to austerity won a solid election against the person leading Europe away from government spending, the German PM. Even one of the most emphatic pro-austerity governments in northern Europe, the Netherlands, has announced that it isn’t able to keep its spending below the required cap. They are going to have new elections soon and may become an over-spender.

We are faced with the amazing scenario in which the leading, European, social welfare, big party politicians are trying to keep their countries from going into bankruptcy, which is to say that they are at least paying attention, and the voting public is rejecting them and voting in complete, not just partial, idiots. Who would have expected the politicians to show some responsibility?

Why isn’t it working? Why can’t the politicians convince the public to go along with the “austerity?” There are two reasons. First, the public has been taught for years, by their parents, their schools, their churches, and their politicians that the government is the fount of all that is good and that private enterprise is evil. They believe that the government can just make things up and provide them with the long life of leisure and pleasure that they have been promised. They just don’t understand why things should change now.

One wonderful example of that is the apparent conflicting poll results in Greece. According to polls taken after the last election and the realization that no government could be formed from the relative strength of the parties, the Greek public wants to put into power a person who will reject all of the agreements connected to the bailout that result in “austerity” (the polls have fluctuated as to who is leading). On the other hand, the Greeks by a large majority want to keep the euro, which they would have to give up if they elect the guy they seem to like.

Then, you ask, why do the Greeks want to stay in the euro zone? Again there are two answers, a bad one and a better one. The bad reason is that the Greek prosperity of the last decade began with their entrance to the euro zone. Having the same currency as the Germans, the Greeks were able to borrow to support the government’s crazy spending at very low rates. Their wages climbed to become thirty percent higher than German wages. They think the euro lays golden eggs!

The second, better reason for wanting the euro is that the common currency does facilitate trade. If governments behaved at all sensibly, a common currency in open trading blocs is an excellent idea. The problem in Europe is that each country insisted on having certain protections. It isn’t actually a free market but a highly controlled one. Really, the common market, the EU, is an illusion.

Getting back to the initial discussion, the second reason why the voters want to reject the “austerity” candidates is that “austerity” as a government program is a failure. It is a failure because all it is doing is collapsing their economies. As I have implied above and in my last post, their economies have insufficient capacity for the readjustment of prices and wages and to move assets into productive endeavors. In short, their economies are not capitalistic but controlled.

We have seen the European politicians struggling for an extended period of time to cope with their problem. We have seen several announcements that they have taken major steps and that things would be better only to see the exact same problem continue: concern by lenders that they aren’t going to be paid back. Hundreds of billions of euros have been given or committed to several different countries. The European Central Bank injected nearly one trillion euros into the banking system in loans at 1% interest which resulted in almost no new commercial lending and about five months of better terms for loans in Spain and Italy. The collapse of inter-bank lending, which was supposedly the justification for the loans, has continued to be a problem. Interest rates controlled by the European Central Bank continue to be near 1% and yet the entire bloc is heading into recession, including Germany. Nothing that has been done has dented their problems. Covered them over for a short period of time, perhaps, but done nothing to move the European Community toward growth and prosperity.

The voters do not understand the importance of capitalism, but they do see that with “austerity” their prospects are very poor. Jobs of all kinds are disappearing, wealth is leaving the country when it can, and no one has the leeway to do anything about it. There appears to be a fatalism about their daily lives. They foresee nothing good happening in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, that is what happens when you give government all the power.

So we see that Europe seems to be faced with the alternative of severe recession with “austerity” with no real way out and going back to the government spending that got them into trouble in the first place. Surely, this problem will be blamed on capitalism and politicians who want to have greater control will be successful. Ignorance of capitalism will lead to contraction, probably bankruptcy, and further reduction of freedom. The effects of decades of social welfare state policies will become obvious.

I am not one for disaster scenarios. When people write about upcoming collapse of our economy I tend to yawn. Yet very bad things are happening. Greece is in a depression, although no one else is willing to say so. Spain isn’t that far away from a depression and they haven’t even gotten to the bottom yet. Neither of those countries are particularly large and so far they have had friends who have been able to keep them afloat. Then we must realize that Italy and France are tittering. Italy has set a course that will keep it going for a while, but France has just rejected “austerity” and has already begun new commitments for ongoing spending. Their choice seems to have been made. It isn’t good. I suggest we all reread The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff to get an idea of what could happen.

So, then the question becomes, what are we going to do? We don’t want to live through the same thing here. Obviously, in order to avoid it people will have to learn what capitalism is, in some detail. I think that many people are willing to listen. ARI has several good programs and books that do that. Let’s help them. The more voices explaining capitalism the better.