77
suggests that persistent trade deficits will be detrimental to a nation’s economic
outlook by negatively impacting employment, growth, and devaluing its currency.
The United States, as the world’s largest deficit nation, has consistently proven
these theories wrong”.
23
Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov (1903–1987) examined this class of
contradictions to develop an explanation that was quickly adopted by ecologists
looking at predator-prey relations (the Lotka-Volterra equations, named after
American chemist Alfred Lotka and Italian physicist Vito Volterra) in order to better
understand ecological flux, and steady-state systems that persist despite boom-andbust population dynamics, whether among lemmings or white-tailed deer, to name
but a few cases.
24
All ecological numbers should give us pause, in the same way that young Ludwig
Wittgenstein, in his initial versions of his Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung,
underscored—on its title page—his “Motto”: That “anything a man knows… can be
said in three words.” And later, in his Philosophical Investigations, he adds, “Don’t
think, but look” (PI66). In Abhandlung, he even reminds us to toss away the ladder
after we have ascended, using his ideas and propositions as steps, all of which, he
adds, are “nonsensical.” This is philosophy and language, not as thought and words,
per se, but as action.
25
With all numbers and, by implication, all thoughts and words,
the many methods of extracting data, and the very presence of human researchers,
skew the outcome of scientific investigations with the same unassimilable syndromes that give so much verisimilitude to Werner Heisenberg’s 1927 Principle of
Uncertainty, or Indeterminacy, pertaining to the location of an observer, and the
velocity of the observed object.
Stated differently, an Anthropic Principle injects bias at every level of human
perception, from our notions of the cosmos to that infinitesimal inclusion of ourselves in the equations of galaxies, beginnings, and ends. A logical basis for determining this indeterminacy, these blurred peripheries between reality and unreality,
23 See “The Pros and Cons of a Trade Deficit,” by Adam Hayes, May 15, 2015, https://www.
investopedia.com/articles/investing/051515/pros-cons-trade-deficit.asp, Accessed January 21,
2019.
24 See Lotka, A. J. (1920). ”Analytical Note on Certain Rhythmic Relations in Organic Systems”.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.6: 410–415. doi:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.6.7.410. PMC 1084562.
PMID 16576509. See also, Volterra, V. (1931). “Variations and fluctuations of the number of individuals in animal species living together”. In Chapman, R. N. Animal Ecology. McGraw–Hill; and
Abrams, P. A.; Ginzburg, L. R. (2000). “The nature of predation: prey dependent, ratio dependent
or neither?”. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 15 (8): 337–341. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/
s0169-5347(00)01908-x. For a superb recent overview of the theories post-Lotka and Volterra, see
“Dynamics from a predator-prey-quarry-resource-scavenger model,” by Joanneke E. Jansen and
Robert A. Van Gorder, Theoretical Ecology 11, 19–38(2018), September 14, 2017, Springer Link,
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12080-017-0346-z, Accessed April 28, 2020.
25 See Protractatus, An early version of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Edited by B. F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg and G. H. von Wright, with a translation by D. F. Pears and
B. F. McGuinness, an historical introduction by G. H. von Wright and a facsimile of the author’s
manuscript, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1971; Philosophical Investigations, 1953,
G.E.M. Anscombe and R. Rhees (eds.), G.E.M. Anscombe (trans.), Oxford: Blackwell.
8.5 What Do We Know? What Do We Actually Perceive?
suggests that persistent trade deficits will be detrimental to a nation’s economic
outlook by negatively impacting employment, growth, and devaluing its currency.
The United States, as the world’s largest deficit nation, has consistently proven
these theories wrong”.
23
Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov (1903–1987) examined this class of
contradictions to develop an explanation that was quickly adopted by ecologists
looking at predator-prey relations (the Lotka-Volterra equations, named after
American chemist Alfred Lotka and Italian physicist Vito Volterra) in order to better
understand ecological flux, and steady-state systems that persist despite boom-andbust population dynamics, whether among lemmings or white-tailed deer, to name
but a few cases.
24
All ecological numbers should give us pause, in the same way that young Ludwig
Wittgenstein, in his initial versions of his Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung,
underscored—on its title page—his “Motto”: That “anything a man knows… can be
said in three words.” And later, in his Philosophical Investigations, he adds, “Don’t
think, but look” (PI66). In Abhandlung, he even reminds us to toss away the ladder
after we have ascended, using his ideas and propositions as steps, all of which, he
adds, are “nonsensical.” This is philosophy and language, not as thought and words,
per se, but as action.
25
With all numbers and, by implication, all thoughts and words,
the many methods of extracting data, and the very presence of human researchers,
skew the outcome of scientific investigations with the same unassimilable syndromes that give so much verisimilitude to Werner Heisenberg’s 1927 Principle of
Uncertainty, or Indeterminacy, pertaining to the location of an observer, and the
velocity of the observed object.
Stated differently, an Anthropic Principle injects bias at every level of human
perception, from our notions of the cosmos to that infinitesimal inclusion of ourselves in the equations of galaxies, beginnings, and ends. A logical basis for determining this indeterminacy, these blurred peripheries between reality and unreality,
23 See “The Pros and Cons of a Trade Deficit,” by Adam Hayes, May 15, 2015, https://www.
investopedia.com/articles/investing/051515/pros-cons-trade-deficit.asp, Accessed January 21,
2019.
24 See Lotka, A. J. (1920). ”Analytical Note on Certain Rhythmic Relations in Organic Systems”.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.6: 410–415. doi:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.6.7.410. PMC 1084562.
PMID 16576509. See also, Volterra, V. (1931). “Variations and fluctuations of the number of individuals in animal species living together”. In Chapman, R. N. Animal Ecology. McGraw–Hill; and
Abrams, P. A.; Ginzburg, L. R. (2000). “The nature of predation: prey dependent, ratio dependent
or neither?”. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 15 (8): 337–341. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/
s0169-5347(00)01908-x. For a superb recent overview of the theories post-Lotka and Volterra, see
“Dynamics from a predator-prey-quarry-resource-scavenger model,” by Joanneke E. Jansen and
Robert A. Van Gorder, Theoretical Ecology 11, 19–38(2018), September 14, 2017, Springer Link,
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12080-017-0346-z, Accessed April 28, 2020.
25 See Protractatus, An early version of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Edited by B. F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg and G. H. von Wright, with a translation by D. F. Pears and
B. F. McGuinness, an historical introduction by G. H. von Wright and a facsimile of the author’s
manuscript, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1971; Philosophical Investigations, 1953,
G.E.M. Anscombe and R. Rhees (eds.), G.E.M. Anscombe (trans.), Oxford: Blackwell.
8.5 What Do We Know? What Do We Actually Perceive?