Book Quotes

Society is not Newtonian physics

~From Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Anotherby Philip Ball, page 30:

There are few political thinkers who have defined a social model with the logical precision of Hobbes, and none who have carried those precepts through to their conclusions in a truly scientific, rather than suppositional way. This is not by any means to denigrate such models; rather, it is simply to say that their approach is different. Political theorists tend to concern themselves with what they think ought to be; scientists concentrate on the way things are. The same is true of the new physics of society: it seeks to find descriptions of observed social phenomena and to understand how they might arise from simple assumptions.

Whoa, don't give Hobbes's lame attempt too much credit... trying to be scientific is not the same as being scientific. If Hobbes started off with such silly and scientifically baseless axioms as "people remain in motion," then he's really being no more "scientific" than anyone else. Isn't he still concerning himself with what ought to be the axioms?

Labels: Critical Mass

posted by Sean Hannifin @ 9:51 AM 0 Comments

Hobbes the fool

~From Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Anotherby Philip Ball, page 17:

On meeting the great man [Galileo], Hobbes became convinced that [intertia] must be the axiom he was seeking [to form a fundemental hypothesis about human behavior]. Constant motion was the natural state of all things, including people. All human sensations and emotions, he concluded, were the result of motion. From this basic principle Hobbes would work upward to a theory of society.

I didn't know Hobbes was that foolish... to take the physical property of inertia and just decide it must apply to human thought?! Where in the world does that axiom come from?! I can understand how the human mind is like a computer, a very simple notion nowadays, and the notion that it "remains in motion" might have some merit, but it's Hobbes's logic that I find surprising... he learns something about physics and just decides to apply it humans in way that its meaning changes so much its basis in physics is almost meaningless. Give me a break, Hobbes, you fool!

Labels: Critical Mass

posted by Sean Hannifin @ 10:51 AM 0 Comments