A Sinclair Essay, "Humans and the Physical World"

["dean sinclair" <deanlsinclair@hotmail.com>]

This little essay was written some years ago by a Sinclair. I hope that some 
Sinclairs will find the ideas interesting and that posting it here is not 
out of line. dls
Economics 000, Humans and the Physical World
Before one goes into the study of Economics, one should know some 
principles/facts that are usually assumed or ignored. Among these are the 
following:
    1. Human activity takes place in the physical world, deals with matter 
and energy; and, therefore, is ultimately limited by the laws of physics and 
the laws of chance.
    2. Since all wealth can be traced to transfers of matter/energy, the 
true basis of all wealth is energy.
    3. Corollary to this is the fact that all wealth will then be bound by 
the fact that in any system that you may choose to examine there will be a 
finite amount of resources and when anything is done with these resources 
some are lost irretrievably. There is waste of some matter/energy in any 
interaction. (A special case of this is the "First and Second Laws of 
Thermodynamics," often stated as "You can't win," and "You can't break 
even."
     4. Consideration of #'s 2 and 3 above, that any economic system not fed 
by wealth from outside itself must ultimately collapse.
     5. Our entire Earth may bee considered as an economic system.
     6. Our Earth's outside source of wealth is the Sun.
     7. Considering "4,5,6," it can be said, "As long as Earth is using more 
energy than it is harvesting from the sun, it's economic system in 
collapsing."
......There is more to this essay, but if the points above are valid, there 
are certainly things to be thought about as to what should be human 
priorities....The final point of this essay, made much later is that, while 
ultimately, our system is doomed, the name of the game perhaps should be to 
keep Earth inhabitable as long as possible and humans as habitants as long 
as possible. Seems like that would take a lot of rethinking of current 
trends....As many Sinclairs nave been leaders, I'm posting this for comment. 
If I'm out of line, sorry! w
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