The Soros Lectures

George Soros is famous for being the man who made a billion dollars on a single day. Less known are they very thought provoking series of lectures he gave.

We know that the Semitic religions claim to know the one and only ultimate truth. Both Christianity and Islam have shown the evil that claim inevitably leads to. Soros says the same applies to non-religious ideologies too:

“Ideologies which claim to be in possession of the ultimate truth are making a false claim; therefore, they can be imposed on society only by force. This applies to Communism, Fascism and National Socialism alike. All these ideologies lead to repression.”

Soros goes on to talk about the two purposes of thought:

“One is to understand the world in which we live; I call this the cognitive function. The other is to change the situation to our advantage. I call this the participating or manipulative function.”

He then says that when both of the above functions work at the same time, they can interfere with each other. He terms this interference the “concept of reflexivity”, or as he describes it later:

“The participants' views influence the course of events, and the course of events influences the participants' views.”

Reflexivity, says Soros, is the fundamental differences between the physical sciences and the social sciences:

“Social theories are reflexive. Heisenberg's discovery of the uncertainty principle did not alter the behavior of quantum particles one iota, but social theories, whether Marxism, market fundamentalism or the theory of reflexivity, can affect the subject matter to which it refers.”

So why then do social sciences try to emulate the physical sciences in general and physics in particular? Soros says it is because of what he calls the “fertile fallacy”:

“We are capable of acquiring knowledge, but we can never have enough knowledge to allow us to base all our decisions on knowledge. It follows that if a piece of knowledge has proved useful we are liable to over-exploit it and extend it to areas where it no longer applies, so that it becomes a fallacy.”

If physics can be so ultra-precise in its predictions, some assume that so should economics. That’s the fallacy.

In the arena of politics, Soros correctly says that the thinking goes like this:

“Now that we have discovered that reality can be manipulated, why should the cognitive function be given precedence? Why not engage directly in manipulation? Why not pursue power rather than truth?”

If you found all that interesting, check out the entire series here.