by From Lars Syll Statistical mechanics reasoning may be applicable in the economic and social sciences, but only if adequate consideration is paid to the specific contexts and conditions of its application. This requires attention to “non-mechanical” processes of interaction, inflected by power, culture, institutions etc., and therefore of specific histories which gives rise to these factors … Outside of very specific cases, statistical physics is more likely to provide useful metaphors and ways of thinking than computational techniques and definite answers. Although statistical mechanical explanation can shed light on particular mechanisms that may be at play (e.g. explaining how distributions are shaped by the differences between the ways in which wages and profits may respectively
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from Lars Syll
Statistical mechanics reasoning may be applicable in the economic and social sciences, but only if adequate consideration is paid to the specific contexts and conditions of its application. This requires attention to “non-mechanical” processes of interaction, inflected by power, culture, institutions etc., and therefore of specific histories which gives rise to these factors …
Outside of very specific cases, statistical physics is more likely to provide useful metaphors and ways of thinking than computational techniques and definite answers. Although statistical mechanical explanation can shed light on particular mechanisms that may be at play (e.g. explaining how distributions are shaped by the differences between the ways in which wages and profits may respectively evolve) these must be interpreted in a specific causal context … In the context of the human sciences, agency – not merely the exercise of individual choice but the shaping of the circumstances of collective life – is the central factor both in determining the properties of a system and in shaping individual choices. The exercise of human agency may bring a social system closer to an “equilibrium” in some circumstances, and disrupt it in others. It is among the specifically social factors that must be taken note of in the dialogue between statistical physics and the social sciences.