60 Seconds Adventures in Economics - The Paradox of Thrift

If you're a long-time follower of our blog, you've probably heard the Hayek vs Keynes rap rap before, and learned all about the boom and bust cycle, but if you haven't, or if you want a different introduction to the short vs long-term, and individual vs collective conflict in economic theory, here's a little introduction to Keynes' paradox of thrift, all part of the Open University's 60 Second Adventures in Thought.

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60 Seconds Adventures in Economics - The Invisible Hand

If you thought the Open University's 60 Second Adventures in Thought were over, think again! Yes, they may be done with paradoxes and strange thought puzzles (for now), but there's plenty of other fascinating things to explore, and they have decided to devote some attention to the field of economics.

Of course, no introduction to economics would be complete without Adam Smith's concept of the "invisible hand," that self-directed mechanism through which markets regulate themselves for the collective benefit of both consumers and producers.

Oddly enough, at least here in America, many of those people who deny the self-directed and amoral process of evolution through natural selection are perfectly comfortable with the equally blind and amoral self-directed market, and some, such as objectivists, actually argue that a completely free, unregulated market is the ultimate expression of a moral society.  Oh yeah, we've got it all...

And if you need a refresher on modern economics, you might want to check out the Hayek vs. Keynes rap.

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Schrödinger’s Cat... in 60 Seconds

We've seen in previous episodes of this 60-second Adventures in Thought series, all sorts of philosophical, logical, mathematical and scientific paradoxes and all-around weirdness. To remind you, we've seen Zeno's paradox concerning motion, the grandfather paradox concerning backward travel through time, John Searle's chinese room thought experiment concerning thought and computation, Hilbert's infinite hotel concerning different size infinities, Einstein's twin paradox concerning special relativity.

And finally, today we have Schrödinger’s Cat, that poor kitty whose bivalent fate rests upon the superposition of subatomic particles...

For a more serious treatment of Schrödinger’s Cat, check out Jim Al-Khalili's documentary Atoms: The Illusion of Reality.

And for more on infinities, you'll do your brain a favor by watching the excellent documentary Dangerous Knowledge.

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The Twin Paradox

If you're riding a train and you shoot a gun in the same direction, the total speed of the bullet, relative to the ground, would be the speed of the bullet relative to the gun plus the speed of the train relative to the ground. There's nothing mysterious about that concept.

But what if you decided to shoot your photon torpedo gun (aka, your flashlight, or your torch if you're in England or Australia) under the same conditions? Intuitively, you'd think the speed of the light leaving the flashlight would equal its speed relative to the flashlight plus the speed of the train train relative to the ground, except you'd be wrong.

At the end of the 19th century, and especially thanks to the work of James Clerk Maxwell, there was plenty of evidence to conclude that the speed of light is constant, no matter how fast or in what direction you move relative to it, but no one could understand how this could possibly be so... until Albert Einstein developed his special theory of relativity with an intuition would that would forever revolutionize our understanding of physics: while the speed of light is constant, time and space are relative.

One of the weird consequences of that idea has come to be known as the twin paradox, about which you get to learn in the following funny animation:

Actually, GPS is one of the few applications that combines both special and general relativity in order to work because the Earth's gravitational pull also messes with the curvature of space-time.

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Hilbert's Infinite Hotel

If you study subjects like philosophy, cosmology or mathematics, it won't be long until you find yourself deep in the contemplation of the nasty little business of infinity.

Zeno's paradoxes of motion represent some of the earliest attempts to confront this beast, and although modern tools like calculus or the idea of an infinite sum seems to resolve the problem, I can't say that we've really solved it. It's more like we've brushed it aside and agreed to pretend it's been dealt with. Although I find myself on a small minority here, I still sympathize with Zeno.

One thought-experiment I've never been able to swallow, however, is Hilbert's Infinite Hotel. From the very beginning, it seems to want to assume premises that I would not want to grant... but this is not about me. It's about you, dear reader, and it's about exposing you to interesting ideas that will be worth your while to think about, so here's a short introduction:

And if you want more, check out the Grandfather paradox or the Chinese Room thought experiment.

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The Chinese Room Thought Experiment

The rise of computers in the 20th century, and especially their exponentially increasing computational capacity and speed, has gotten many curious minds to speculate as to whether it is possible at some point to create computers that can think. Those who believe in things like the computational singularity, such as David Chalmers, think it's just a matter of time before we have to bow down to our new mechanized overlords.

Here is a Philosophy Bites interview with Chalmers on just such a question:

Others, like philosopher John Searle, however, think that, given everything we know about computation, it is impossible, even in principle, for computers ever to think, no matter their computational capacity. To prove this point, Searle came up with what has come to be regarded, by supporters and detractors alike, as a classic thought experiment: the Chinese room, which you get to learn about in the following 60 seconds.

For more on questions of mind, consciousness, personal identity, etc., visit the Brainspotting tag.

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Time Travel and the Grandfather Paradox

Nothing beats boredom quite like philosophy. You start with almost any seemingly simple question, you do some heavy thinking, and before you know it, like when we were first introduced to Zeno of Elea (or even his mentor, Parmenides), it turns out motion may just be an optical illusion.

Now we get to explore the grandfather paradox. It's pretty obvious that if you wanted to kill your grandpa, a simple piece of technology like a pillow could get the job done. But what if you've suffered a lifetime of bad jokes, anachronistic war references, patronizing judgments for being 'metrosexual', and countless stories about how easy you have it now compared to a hundred years ago, when he had to walk five miles naked and barefoot through the snow so they could make it to school?

How could you get rid of the old geezer? Could you be so annoyed that you just get into your time machine and travel back to a time before he even met grandma and kill him right there and then? That would solve all the future annoying moments you've suffered for years... but wait, if you kill him before he meets your grandma, he can't knock her up with your dad, and if your dad is never born, then he obviously could not get your mom preggers with you, but then you would not be born, and if you're not born, how could you possibly travel back in time to kill gramps? Oy vay!

Ask the right questions, and a universe of fascinating opportunities opens up to you, or at least you get to kill boredom for a while. Either way it's a win-win.

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The Impossibility of Motion - Achilles and the Tortoise

There are many things most of us just take for granted as obvious or just plain common sense, and therefore as not worth wasting our time on. Philosophers, however, nit-picking bunch that we are, are insatiably curious, and in our search for some coherent grand theory of everything, usually mange to find trouble instead, of the conceptual kind, although there is also a respectable history of weird philosophers' deaths, which you may find interesting.

When you question what others take as self-evident, you may come to realize that what we take to be real may be anything but. If you can spare 60 seconds, the following animation demonstrates one of Zeno's famous paradoxes of motion proposed to support his mentor Parmenides' thesis that "all is one" and that change is impossible.

According to this paradox,if you think that it is possible for something to move from point A to point B, you've got to be kidding... and you haven't actually "thought" anything...

And for a more comprehensive introduction to, and analysis of, Zeno's paradoxes, check out the article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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