This was a fascinating conversation. Thank you very much for it!
Have you come across W. Brian Arthur’s math-language-based critique of economics? He argues (I think) that economics is bad at exploring and explaining change because historically, it’s modelled using algebraic rather than algorithmic mathematics. He suggests this is partly why economists conceptualise in terms of “nouns”, rather than “verbs”; which connects to why they’re bad at describing non-equilibrium states. It’s an interesting idea about how ‘language’ is not neutral: it both shapes and reflects how we think about the world. Link to the paper below.
You also mentioned money and debt. Have you noticed parallels between hierarchies of language and money? Eg English as today’s ‘common language’ and the USD as today’s ‘common currency’, which resolves problems of cross-border value exchange? Perhaps it speaks to thinking of both money and language as communication technologies, with different ‘forms’ being more or less appropriate and useful in different contexts?
This was a fascinating conversation. Thank you very much for it!
Have you come across W. Brian Arthur’s math-language-based critique of economics? He argues (I think) that economics is bad at exploring and explaining change because historically, it’s modelled using algebraic rather than algorithmic mathematics. He suggests this is partly why economists conceptualise in terms of “nouns”, rather than “verbs”; which connects to why they’re bad at describing non-equilibrium states. It’s an interesting idea about how ‘language’ is not neutral: it both shapes and reflects how we think about the world. Link to the paper below.
You also mentioned money and debt. Have you noticed parallels between hierarchies of language and money? Eg English as today’s ‘common language’ and the USD as today’s ‘common currency’, which resolves problems of cross-border value exchange? Perhaps it speaks to thinking of both money and language as communication technologies, with different ‘forms’ being more or less appropriate and useful in different contexts?
Thanks again!
https://sites.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/Papers/Nouns_Verbs_JEBO.pdf