Re: Gregnews: US report proves EP lies

Physics has a kind of popularity in a "vulgar empiricism" sense,
which the Gregbot's rhetorical rules engine has been designed to
exploit.  A lot of clueless patent professionals either share the
same lack of understanding, or deliberately exploit this
unenlightened point of view.


Seth


PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> 
> > >There is something abusive in words such as   "financial engineering"
> > >etc, an attempt to borrow the prestige of applied natural science
> > >into a domain which is does not share the features to which a.n.s.
> > >owes its prestige, and, from there, to infer that various rules,
> > >including patent law, should also be transferred from a.n.s. to
> > >that domain.
> >
> > There is nothing abusive if you are familiar with modern physics.  If
> > you read current physics journals, you will see a growing number of
> > physicists applying the tools of moderm physics (especially statistical
> > thermodynamics) to analyzing and modeling financial markets and processes.
> > There is even a word to describe this growing overlap of economics and
> > physics - econophysics (for example, check out the European Web site for
> > econophysics - www.unifr.ch/econophysics).
> >
> > Goods like commodities and currencies are in some ways representations for
> > energy.  The movement and exchange of such goods is little different than
> > the movement and exchange of energy in interacting particle systems.  In
> > both cases, thermodynamics ignores the microscopic interactions and focuses
> > instead on macroscopic properties.  It is not surprising then that
> > physicists are successfully able to apply this physics to financial
> > markets (indeed, Wall Street hires tons of physicists).
> 
> What you are saying here is that there is an overlap between the mathematical
> models with which economics and physics can be studied.  This is really
> not surprising, since it would make sense to develop mathematical models
> in a way so that they can apply to the widest possible range of complex
> systems.  Since the earliest ages thinkers have been using terms like
> "atom", "individual", "bit", "element" etc to make the world studiable.
> And comparisons of all these domains where such models are applied of
> course can help to further improve the models.
> 
> When you look at the naming "econophysics" you once again find that it is
> the economists who appear to be borrowing the prestige of the physicists,
> rather than the other way around.  It is clear that physics is the most
> successful and prestigious application area for these models.  Yet their
> identification with "physics" by economists could again be seen as abusive.
> 
> --
> Hartmut Pilch, FFII.org, Munich Office +498918979927, Brussels +3227396262
> Protect Innovation, not Monopolies       http://www.economic-majority.com/
> 
> 

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