Pete Vincent wrote,
> The computer you have on your desk is now
>sufficiently powerful to generate a laboratory model of economic
>processes, if it is programmed with an FSA (finite state automata)
>model, rather than a model based on the received formulae of the
>orthodoxy. The complexity of the model is limited only by the degree
>of thoroughness and creative enterprise of the researchers building
>the program. The automata can be built to represent the individual
>players in the model world, each with as many variable characteristics
>as one might want to represent the variations in behaviour of the
>market players in the laboratory economic universe. A robust model
>might have a few hundred thousand such automata, and still be able
>to provide useful experimental data before lunch.
Got one of those. Built it in about a week on a spreadsheet and have been
refining it for the past two years. It should be worth billions of dollars
to the Government of Canada. They don't want to hear about it. They already
know the answers without asking the questions. Why would they want to ask
the questions?
You don't really need an awful lot of independent variable characteristics
before you start breaking new ground. The problem comes when you try to
present your results. People object because the experimental data don't
conform to the received orthodoxy.
Try explaining that there's no real reason why they should, the received
orthodoxy has never been empirically validated. All that complexity,
thoroughness and creativity runs into the prejudice that the result must be
wrong because it doesn't conform with what people expect. Try walking people
through the complexity, thoroughness and creativity and they get impatient,
"why can't you just explain it simply so I can understand." Explain it
simply and they object, "no, that doesn't sound right, it's not what I'd
expect."
I'm not just talking about "economists". The economic orthodoxy is
incredibly pervasive. As Keynes remarked people's opinions that they regard
as "untheoretical" are made up from old, long discredited theories. There's
nothing as hard to argue against as an idee fixe that someone doesn't know
they have.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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