But when I'm listening to Paulson or Bernanke or other experts, and look at their records and actions, and the innacuracy of every forecaster 2 years ago. Nobody could tell us what is happening now, and nobody does much better now at understanding it as it unfolds. At least the problem is with the future of things. The past is our data mining . This is true from a phenomenological perspective as well as from an scientific. The problems pertains to the episteme field in general, ie that any sentient being behaves on a perceptory and cognitive side.
I am wondering how much about this recession has to do with phenomenas more commonly found in social psychology, namely role playing, script following, and the types of phenomenas akin to self-fulfilling prophecies, or naturally organizing phenomenas. IE, what we see here is a virus thrown inside the system, which propagates in such a way that it gives rise to unintended consequences, and the system re-organizes himself to a new face. In this case: a polarizing effect of fear and hide response. At case: even if they are given the credit now, as has been tried already in numerous cases, the bankers and money movers are reluctantly to do anything with it since its value / rarity has dramatically changed and the mood for a time period exceeding the expectancy of this cash is pessimistic. Are you pessimistic or optimistic for the future? That is something central bankers would always wish to be able to modulate, but they cannot, and have very limited influence over it, because they took too much credit for when it was going well and now they appear as having lost all credibility as they are fumbling now. It's like the old peasants blaming the king for the weather type of thing and the king being caught in a control system that doesnt work (namely religious offerings and (monarchical) pleas).
A bear market is where clever people get rich, I think the rationale goes. In a high flying market, everything is saturated with money as everybody is looking for a share of the pie. When the pie appears to be all eaten, people retract their stakes for fear of getting burned. So the idea is to pick the right horse just when the race is about to start again - just when the bear is about to swing to bull. It can be the same thing in business. Although this depends slighlty on the industry your business is in, it in any case affects all those who need to borrow money, or to go public for financing as the lenders and investors are not there.
Friedman, the journalist, tried to imagine inflection points in the course of history, or something of htat level of abstraction in human affairs. The idea seemed gimmecke, or the kind of stuff that ends up applying to too many situations, but doesn't really inform us about how. Yet, there remaines watershed decisions in human behavior.
This movie can be viewed as a cinematographic interpretation of some of Descartes' fundamental worries in the Meditations: about experiences of consciousness taken in a phenomenological angle, pushing to an extreme the level of doubt and the analysis of fondamentalist beliefs and intuitions giving rise to validity and consciousness.
I thought this movie was brilliant beyond and above itself in that way, but the movie also has merits of its own on a cinematographic level.
The story is very convincing and plays like an investigatory affair, going backward in time and seeding doubts about the order of events. Sometimes it is hard to tell what really happened or which of the characters is to be trusted. It builds suspense and tension but you have to make an effort to follow it. It's not an easy movie. It's a psychological thriller.
Memento philosophical themes
- Time
- Modulity in interpretation (of the past), Facts
- Discontinuity in phenomenological experience
- Identity = Memory
- Doubt, Skepticism
