Georg Franck

How Time Passes

Time is a basic ingredient of the universe. It is the dimension of change. Change has two meanings, however. There is real change in the sense that world states differing in date also differ in structure or function; and there is temporal change in the sense that states having been future become present and then past. In physics, only real change is acknowledged. Accordingly, time in physics exclusively is the dimension of real change.

The scientific economy of attention: A novel approach to the collective rationality of science

Science is the core sector of present-day knowledge production. Yet, the mechanisms of science as an industry are poorly understood. The economic theory of science is still in its infancy, and philosophy of science has only sparsely addressed the issue of economic rationality. Research, however, is costly. Inefficient use of resources consumed by the scientific industry is as detrimental to the collective advancement of knowledge as are deficiencies in method. Economic inefficiency encompasses methodological inadequacy. Methods are inadequate if they tend to misallocate time and effort. If one omits the question of how inputs are transformed into outputs in self-organised knowledge production, this means neglecting an essential aspect of the collective rationality of science. A self-organised tendency towards efficiency comes to the fore as soon as science is described as an economy in which researchers invest their own attention in order to obtain the attention of others. Viewed like this, scientific communication appears to be a market where information is exchanged for attention. Scientific information is measured in terms of the attention it earns. Since scientists demand scientific information as a means of production, the attention that a theory attracts is a measure of its value as a capital good. On the other hand, the attention a scientist earns is capitalised into the asset called reputation. Elaborating the ideas introduced in Franck (1998) and (1999), the paper describes science as a highly developed market economy. Science conceived as capital market covers the specific conditions under which scientists, while maximising their reputation, optimise output in the eyes of those competent to judge. Attention is not just any resource. It is the resource whose efficient use is called intelligence. Science, as an industry transforming attention into cognitive output, is bound to miss the hallmark of rationality if it does not pass a test of collective intelligence. The paper closes with considering the prospective outcome of such a test.

A Proposed Relation Between Intensity of Presence and Duration of Nowness

It is proposed to translate the mind-matter distinction into terms of mental and physical time. In the spirit of this idea, we hypothesize a relation between the intensity of mental presence and a crucial time scale (some seconds) often referred to as a measure for the duration of nowness. This duration is experimentally accessible and might, thus, offer a suitable way to characterize the intensity of mental presence. Interesting consequences with respect to the idea of a generalized notion of mental presence, with human consciousness as a special case, are outlined. Our approach includes some features consistent with other, related ideas which are indicated.

Jenseits von Geld und Information: Zur Ökonomie der Aufmerksamkeit

Zwei Tendenzen beherrschen die Wahrnehmung des aktuellen Wandels der Gesellschaft. Es sind die fortschreitende Okonomisierung des Gesellschaftsprozesses und die Entmaterialisierung der wirtschaftlichen Wertschopfung. Okonomische Begriffe und Modelle bestimmen immer deutlicher das Bild der sozialen und politischen Verhaltnisse unserer Gesellschaft. Mit der okonomischen Durchrationalisierung einher geht der Wandel von der Industrie- zur Informationsgesellschaft. Die Wissensproduktion beerbt die Fuhrungsrolle der Schwerindustrie, Datenstrome ersetzen Guterstrome, neue Medien verdrangen alte Marktplatze.

The Wage of Fame: How Non-Epistemic Motives Have Enabled the Phenomenal Success of Modern Science

This paper ventures an economic view of modern science. It points out how science works as a closed economy of attention where researchers invest their own attention in order to get the attention of fellow researchers. Attention thus enters economy in two properties: (1) as a scarce resource energising scientific production and (2) as a means of gratification rewarding the effort of the working scientist. Economising on attention as a scarce resource is another expression of thought economy. The income of expert attention is what gives rise to reputation, renown, prominence and eventually fame. By its being conceived as a closed economy of attention, science shows to be capable of self-organising a tendency towards overall efficiency and thus towards collective rationality.

Modern science: a case of collective intelligence? On the role of thought economy and gratifying attention in knowledge production.

Your attention please: Phenomenal conciousness, that is, how something feels, does not exist for an observer. As science relies on observations, it is not aware of the nature of subjectivity and thus science is not often defined as a collective intelligence. In this Essay, the roles of intelligence and attention are discussed, as well as an analysis of scientific communication and citation, in order to evaluate whether science is a case of collective intelligence.