The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#2All this “physics of news” framing repeats the same mistake mainstream economics made decades ago, confusing human action with measurable physical phenomena. People aren’t particles, and opinions aren’t spin states. As Mises and Hazlitt argued, mathematical models give spurious precision when applied to purposeful behavior: they hide their "arbitrary assumptions" behind elegant equations. Treating communication, belief, and motivation as quantifiable variables may look rigorous, but it strips away meaning, choice, and context and the very essence of human decision. What results isn’t insight, but an illusion of control dressed up as science.
Physics operates on mechanical causality while human behavior does not.
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#3All this “physics of news” framing repeats the same mistake mainstream economics made decades ago, confusing human action with measurable physical phenomena. People aren’t particles, and opinions aren’t spin states. As Mises and Hazlitt argued, mathematical models give spurious precision when applied to purposeful behavior: they hide their "arbitrary assumptions" behind elegant equations. Treating communication, beli…
are you claiming that human action is not measurable physical phenomena?
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#4All this “physics of news” framing repeats the same mistake mainstream economics made decades ago, confusing human action with measurable physical phenomena. People aren’t particles, and opinions aren’t spin states. As Mises and Hazlitt argued, mathematical models give spurious precision when applied to purposeful behavior: they hide their "arbitrary assumptions" behind elegant equations. Treating communication, beli…
are you claiming that human action is not measurable physical phenomena?
Human action isn’t just another physical process because it’s driven by intention, not mechanical causation. A rock falls because gravity compels it; a person acts because they want something to happen. That difference makes human behavior fundamentally qualitative. It’s rooted in meaning, interpretation, and choice. You can measure motion, but you can’t measure purpose. Once you strip away intention to fit behavior into a mathematical model, you’re no longer describing human action. You’re describing an abstraction that behaves like a machine. The numbers might be tidy, but they stop representing what people actually do.
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#5All this “physics of news” framing repeats the same mistake mainstream economics made decades ago, confusing human action with measurable physical phenomena. People aren’t particles, and opinions aren’t spin states. As Mises and Hazlitt argued, mathematical models give spurious precision when applied to purposeful behavior: they hide their "arbitrary assumptions" behind elegant equations. Treating communication, beli…
are you claiming that human action is not measurable physical phenomena?
Human action is entirely causally dependent on human psychology vis a vis biology, of which we have now only a rudimentary formal understanding and certainly not a sufficient model of its structure, let alone the relation between its aspects and the resulting actions.
At the same time, statistical methods are interesting and suggestive but should be understood at the relatively coarse level they inhabit.
Both approaches have their uses and it is worth delineating the boundary between their respective appropriate contexts.
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
are you claiming that human action is not measurable physical phenomena?
Human action is entirely causally dependent on human psychology vis a vis biology, of which we have now only a rudimentary formal understanding and certainly not a sufficient model of its structure, let alone the relation between its aspects and the resulting actions. At the same time, statistical methods are interesting and suggestive but should be understood at the relatively coarse level they inhabit. Both approac…
[deleted]
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#7All this “physics of news” framing repeats the same mistake mainstream economics made decades ago, confusing human action with measurable physical phenomena. People aren’t particles, and opinions aren’t spin states. As Mises and Hazlitt argued, mathematical models give spurious precision when applied to purposeful behavior: they hide their "arbitrary assumptions" behind elegant equations. Treating communication, beli…
People are not that complicated, and there's abundant evidence that physical models of social phenomena have decent predictive power, notwithstanding all the intervening complexity. The argument of statistical physics is not that people are particles, but that the equations we've found good at describing various natural phenomena work in social contexts because those processes tend toward efficiently conserving energy and the like. Same reason many human and animal activities tend toward power-law distributions.
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
are you claiming that human action is not measurable physical phenomena?
Human action isn’t just another physical process because it’s driven by intention, not mechanical causation. A rock falls because gravity compels it; a person acts because they want something to happen. That difference makes human behavior fundamentally qualitative. It’s rooted in meaning, interpretation, and choice. You can measure motion, but you can’t measure purpose. Once you strip away intention to fit behavior…
Do you not believe that a person's wants can be shaped by the media they are exposed to?
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
are you claiming that human action is not measurable physical phenomena?
Human action isn’t just another physical process because it’s driven by intention, not mechanical causation. A rock falls because gravity compels it; a person acts because they want something to happen. That difference makes human behavior fundamentally qualitative. It’s rooted in meaning, interpretation, and choice. You can measure motion, but you can’t measure purpose. Once you strip away intention to fit behavior…
[deleted]
Re: The physics of news, rumors, and opinions
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human action isn’t just another physical process because it’s driven by intention, not mechanical causation. A rock falls because gravity compels it; a person acts because they want something to happen. That difference makes human behavior fundamentally qualitative. It’s rooted in meaning, interpretation, and choice. You can measure motion, but you can’t measure purpose. Once you strip away intention to fit behavior…
Do you not believe that a person's wants can be shaped by the media they are exposed to?
[dead]