If you can’t measure it, is it science? One more word on consciousness.

As an economist, I am concerned that, despite having access to vast amounts of data, economists often overlook it.

Instead, they seem to rely on the unpredictability and guesswork of psychology—a field known for its use of inference, attitudes, intuition, and bias rather than concrete evidence.

Thus, many economists ignore several facts:

1. Almost every post-WWII slowdown or recession coincides with fiscal drag, which is a decrease in the gro
2. GDP=Federal Spending+Non-federal spending+ Net Exports
3. wth of federal deficit spending.
4. When the federal government reduces the growth of the deficit, whether through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both, it takes away net growth dollars from the economy.
5. Even a small “surplus bias” (deficit shrinking) can tip an economy into contractions. Federal surpluses drain growth dollars from the private sector (aka, the “economy).
6. The FRED series on “Debt Held by the Public” shows that when the growth rate of government debt slows or becomes negative, the aggregate demand in the economy tends to decrease, generally resulting in recessions.
7. If policymakers aim to prevent worsening economic downturns, they must understand that running Federal surpluses—or even significantly reducing deficit growth—can be contractionary. Historical evidence consistently supports this.

Instead of seeing economists following the data, what do we see? Almost universal proclamations that federal debt and deficits are too high, and federal deficit spending is unaffordable and unsustainable — exactly the opposite of what all the data show.

So we ask the title question: If you can’t measure it (or if you ignore the measurements), is it science? As it currently is practiced, economics is far less a science than it could and should be.

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And this returns me to the question we have asked and answered in previous posts, “What is consciousness?” Can consciousness be measured scientifically, or is it doomed to remain an art form?

If you can’t even suggest, let alone implement, a data-driven way to measure your concept, it should be considered art, not science.

I suggest a definition and a way to use measurable data, not intuition, to measure consciousness:

Let us term consciousness is the response to stimuli. It can be measured by measuring the stimuli and the response:

“Consciousness is the rate at which an entity transforms all stimuli—external (light, sound, chemicals) and internal (hunger pangs, pain signals, homeostatic alerts)—into responses per unit of time.”

A Method for Measuring Consciousness

1. Entity: Any Bound System: A human, worm, tree, thermostat, stone or colony of ants—all are “entities.” Each has a boundary (skin, bark, casing) inside of which stimuli are converted into internal changes.

2. Stimulus Translation = Information Inflow: Every interaction (light, chemical gradient, pressure wave) is translated inside that boundary into a change in the system’s state. We quantify that translation as bits of information entering the system.

3. Internal Processing = Information Transformation: Once inside, that information is processed (neurons fire, cells shift biochemistry, circuits reroute). This step can also be measured in bits, i.e., how many bits are combined, compared, or stored.

4. Response = Information Outflow / Action: The system responds by changing — moving, secreting chemicals, growing roots, or updating an internal variable. That response itself can be translated back into bits (for instance, the choice among different motor programs, metabolic pathways, or output signals).                                       Stronger stimulus —> Stronger response—> More response bits. 

The Consciousness Measure: Total response bits per second by the entity: For example, a human, having trillions of neural and body-wide events, might provide trillions of response bits.

A worm might provide millions of response bits. A tree, with liquid responses, growth decisions, and chemical signaling, might provide millions of response bits, and a stone, with thermal fluctuations, physical erosion, and quantum state changes, might provide thousands of response bits.

Thus, we have a measure of consciousness that doesn’t rely on a “brain” or neural tissue, just on measurable state changes. You can add up all forms of processing and responses in any system. Entities can be ranked by their raw information-processing speed.

Consciousness can be measured, compared, and ranked, not in vague or romantic terms, and not as art,  but as science.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

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