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“... belong to the believers in the mathematical method as a way to deal with our science. . . . Mathematics is not a method for . . . economic research.”
I think what was meant here was arithmetic, statistics, mathematical analysis etc. Branches having to do with number crunching and formulae over ℝ (the real numbers), which non-mathematical people synonymize with mathematics.
To me, human action, which the Austrian economic thought arises from (even though it was only framed so by Mises, not Menger) is very mathematical; arguably more mathematical than the numerical stuff. With the action axiom, and everything else arising from it through logical, a priori reasoning.
For Austrians, money must clearly evolve, and not be designed. There's no question Satoshi designed bitcoin.
Did gold evolve or was it designed?
I can't cite a source, but I've heard from a physicist that if you changed one of the fundamental physical constants (speed of light in vacuum c, gravitational constant G, Planck constant h, electric constant ε0, elementary charge e) by as little as 2%, the periodic table of the elements would contract to just hydrogen. Hydrogen would be the only element possible. Looks like not only Bitcoin, but also our universe is a solid piece of engineering, gold included.
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So, in your view is there such a thing as an "invisible hand?"
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I try not to get attached to any views on the nature of reality. There are many ways to look at the same thing. I actually like multiverse theory, it does away with the need to explain why things are the way they are. It's no wonder our universe has everything we need, in the ones that don't there is no one to ask questions.
Also, any invention can be reduced (in NP time, if you know what that is) to a discovery. Maybe Satoshi randomly generated a long string of characters and when he looked at it, he realized "Hmm, interesting, this looks like a white paper, let's have a closer look" and verified that it made sense.
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