Thinking is part of reality Our educational system and our culture lie to us. We are taught by our educational system and by our culture that there is thinking and there is reality and that thinking’s job is to discover reality; never informing us that reality and thinking go together, one is not separated from the other. Reflexivity is a concept that informs us that thinking is part of reality. In the natural sciences truth is of the utmost importance because knowledge of reality is a precondition for success. In human affairs there are shortcuts to success—one can lie, manipulate, spin, and use force to gain success. Thus in human affairs truth often takes a back seat. In his book “Open Society” George Soros speaks of many things; one important concept is ‘reflexivity’. “I started thinking in terms of reflexivity nearly fifty years ago. It may be interesting to recall how I arrived at the idea. It was through the footnotes of Karl Popper’s “Open Society and its Enemies”…I started to apply the concept of reflexivity to the understanding of social affairs, and particularly of financial markets, in the early 1960s before evolutionary systems theory was born…” The first chapter of this book, wherein he explains this concept, can be found at http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/soros.htm.
Very nice piece of thinking..Soros: My working hypothesis--that all human constructs are always flawed--is not only unscientific but it has a more radical defect: It is probably not true. Every construct develops a defect with the passage of time, but this does not mean that it was inappropriate or ineffective at the time it was constructed. I think it is possible to refine my working hypothesis and cast it in a form that can lay a stronger claim to be true. Thanks for posting this!
Pro-cop Thanks. Generally I try to write about important ideas that I feel confident that the reader is unfamiliar with. But, alas, this often fails because evryone thinks that I am talking about something that they already know. I do appreciate it when occassionaly someone like your self makes the effort to comprehend what is a complex but important idea.
