Sam Levey Profile picture
Jun 20, 2020 12 tweets 3 min read Read on X
In a break from the ordinary, here's some wild existential thoughts I've been pondering. (I'll return to economics tweets tomorrow)

"You" are indistinguishable from a perfect mathematical model of you. Like you, the model would be a black box that receives inputs and produces...
output. With a sophisticated enough model, it really would be indistinguishable from you - it would answer all questions the same way, and like you it report that it "feels" and has an introspective experience. (This is related to Attention Schema Theory, which argues that if our
brains use a simplified mental model of how attention works, it would report something resembling mystical qualitative experience, just like we do.)

Now suppose that this model of you is embedded in a larger mathematical model of a universe, which determines what inputs "you"
receive and folds back your outputs into environmental effects. Again, from inside this model, "you" and "the universe" would be indistinguishable from the real one. Essentially a simulation.

Ok here's the thing though: mathematical models in some sense do "exist" even if you
don't actually write them down and run it. 2+2=4 regardless of whether you write it down on paper or punch it into your calculator. Once the abstract rules of the symbols, axioms, computations etc are specified, then it is pre-determined that 2+2=4. That "exists" independently of
our efforts to calculate it. When we actually calculate it, we are "discovering" the implications of that system of rules, but the result was implied by, or contained within, the rules themselves, even if we don't actually try to discover the result. The model "exists" in some
autonomous sense. Logically this is true for all possible self-consistent models. Including the universe model. It and its results "exist" in some autonomous abstract sense, even if nobody writes it down and tries to compute the results.

So what if we are in that conceptual
universe? It's not a simulation, in the sense that nobody needs to write down the equations and run them. It exists just like 2+2=4 even when you're not thinking about it. It's an abstract system of rules that implies a set of results.

What I think is neat about this line
of reasoning is that it resolves the problems of space, time and nothingness: Why do space and time exist? What happened "before" time started and what happens "outside" of the universe? In this view we don't need to worry about those questions because space and time don't exist!
The universe model only has an abstract implicative existence, just like 2+2=4. There's no space or time involved. These would just be illusions to us from within the model, as the rules within the system govern how our inputs and outputs are conveyed.

Another implication is
that all possible self-consistent universes exist in the same sense as all others, which means we don't know which one we're in. The rules could out to be a lot crazier than we currently think, eg. maybe there is a lot of supernatural stuff lurking in the background. So long as
its self-consistent, then it would have to "exist" too, if not "here" then "somewhere."

I'm still pondering what the moral implications of this view are...

Ok that's all for now. Back to your regularly scheduled programming of money and economics tweets 😅

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More from @SamHLevey

Dec 31, 2022
I’d like to respond to 2 critiques of the “inflation as distributional conflict” view. Those critiques are: 1) inflation is actually just “money chasing too few goods.” 2) Distributional conflict can’t explain deflation.

Responses below…🧵
1) “Money chasing too few goods” isn’t an alternative to distributional conflict, it *is* distributional conflict, by definition! If you have 11 people trying to buy 10 units of product, then those people are locked in a fight to not be the one who will be disappointed.
What the broader conflict view adds is that there can be other kinds of conflict besides just too much demand, and so inflation can happen even when demand isn’t abnormally high. So other kinds of inflation get subsumed into just one framework.
Read 6 tweets
Nov 4, 2022
I wanted to do a more detailed thread on my paper draft that formalizes the Chartalist theory of the price level using individual optimization, and I'm thinking I better do it before Twitter implodes, so, here goes... 🧵

Paper is here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
The theory comes from Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), and this paper is a follow-up to an earlier paper that had mathematized this mechanism, which was here: levyinstitute.org/publications/m…. What the new draft adds is that it uses orthodox intertemporal optimization to drive behavior. /2
Why did I do this? Mainly because I think there's a lot of room for productive dialogue between these two camps, and I'm hoping to open the door to that. (Plus, I figured, somebody is going to do this, might as well be me :) /3
Read 25 tweets
Sep 11, 2022
When people do Econ 101 against price controls they often invoke the graph on the left, but the reality is that you need price controls for the situation on the right. When you have a necessary good (inelastic demand) and constrained supply, do price controls and rationing. ImageImage
Supply is constrained so higher prices don't elicit more output; you would get higher prices only because sellers are exploiting their position of privilege to extract rents from buyers. For necessary goods, distribution shouldn't be based on who can pony up the most.
For luxury goods, who-gets-what CAN be based on who's willing to pony up the most. So for supply-constrained luxury goods, let prices rise, by all means...and then tax the windfall profits away. But a civilized society doesn't let this happen to essentials like food and energy.
Read 9 tweets
Aug 23, 2022
Framing student loan payments in terms of inflation control is terrible defeatism. Starting from a blank slate, if we had an inflation problem and needed to impose costs on some group to deal with it, we would not single out “people with student debt” to be that group. 1/4
Saying “we need to resume student loans to control inflation” is then a tacit assertion that actually-good policy on inflation will not be forthcoming, so let’s take this nonsense, unjust approach because it’s the best we can get. 2/4
Framing student loan payments as taxes, because that’s what they are, clears this up. In particular, they’re a tax on non-rich former students. Proponents of cancellation are saying that the tax on non-rich former students is an unjust tax that shouldn’t exist. 3/4
Read 4 tweets
Jul 1, 2022
This short piece by John Kenneth Galbraith from 1941 on the inflation problem is a must-read for today, as it bears so much resemblance to today's situation. A thread... jstor.org/stable/1927509
First, Galbraith gives the rationale for acting fastidiously on inflation, noting the memory of uncontrolled inflation during World War 1. "It has been agreed that next time - i.e., this time - prices must be kept under better control."

Our painful memory is the 1970s/80s.
Next, Galbraith challenges the distinction between bottlenecks and general inflation, a conversation we're still having today.
Read 16 tweets
May 27, 2022
To reply to Jo here... What Jo offers as the issues at hand are in my view the wrong questions🧵
Here is what Jo is pointing us towards, and he suggests that the first answer is an obvious 'yes,' while the second question avoids more important issues.
And while Jo is of course quite right about question 1, in my view, MMT is not actually asking question 2. MMT is instead asking this question: are there legal/institutional obstacles which prevent the gov from executing budgeted spending? Put another way,
Read 23 tweets

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