[Memory versus Thought] - A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

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Memory versus Thought

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Posted by: John Gelles

An Islamic scholar was complimenting US education the other day (on CSPAN TV) with the comment: In the US emphasis is not on rote memorization -- rather it is on thinking for yourself.

We know how well computers remember anything and everything.

It is a dream of AI scholars to create a thinking machine. It may be impossible. Until it is done, we can just have children who come equipped to think (and can offload some memorization to machines).

The issue is how to increase the number and effect of children who grow to adults who think independently enough to move our institutional memories away from failed economic rules toward systems that put food on the table and better protect us from environmental poison and savage group behavior.

NKS may help. Quantities must be measured. Qualities must be discovered. Greater confidence by young and old in their grasp of how we measure and how we discover cannot hurt.

Economic and business science take the measure of price as often sufficient for policy decision. Yet they know that only the measure of real materials can satisfy poduction, distribution and consumption of needs. What is the connection between price and reality -- and can we make it better?

I have suggested reform of the other side of the price coin, namely money. But I read nothing on this topic in this area of interest to NKS, the area of economic philosophy -- that should never take money, as we know it, for granted.

Imagine if Stephen Wolfram refused to look beyond algebra to the computations it helped to clarify. Memorize all the business science you like. If you can't think of better ways to move from manufacture to consumption than money, as we know it, you are doomed to fail to meet today's political crises.




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