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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (112685)	4/6/2008 11:01:05 AM
From: Giordano Bruno	Respond to of 132070

I'll pass -g- "This brings me to the central idea in my conceptual framework: I contend that social events have a different structure from natural phenomena. In natural phenomena there is a causal chain that links one set of facts directly with the next. In human affairs the course of events is more complicated. Not only facts are involved but also the participants' views and the interplay between them enter into the causal chain. There is a two-way connection between the facts and opinions prevailing at any moment in time: on the one hand participants seek to understand the situation (which includes both facts and opinions); on the other, they seek to influence the situation (which again includes both facts and opinions). The interplay between the cognitive and manipulative functions intrudes into the causal chain so that the chain does not lead directly from one set of facts to the next but reflects and affects the participants' views. Since those views do not correspond to the facts, they introduce an element of uncertainty into the course of events that is absent from natural phenomena. That element of uncertainty affects both the facts and the participants' views. Natural phenomena are not necessarily determined by scientific laws of universal validity, but social events are liable to be less so.",