Reflexivity

I believe the war in Iraq is good.' This is my response to the polltaker on Monday. On Tuesday I read in the paper that 60% of those polled on Monday said the war was bad and 40% said the war was good. I talk with my friends at work on Wednesday and decide that the war is bad. ?'I believe the war in Iraq is bad.' This is my response to the polltaker on Thursday.

This paragraph is an example of what George Soros calls "reflexivity".

George Soros Philosopher & King (of financial markets) "was born in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930. He survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest and left communist Hungary in 1947 for England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics (LSE). While a student at LSE, Soros became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional and philanthropic activities… In 1956, Soros moved to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed… Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979."

In his book "Open Society" Soros speaks of many things; one important concept is ?'reflexivity'. "I started thinking in terms of reflexivity nearly fifty years ago. It may be interesting to recall how I arrived at the idea. It was through the footnotes of Karl Popper's "Open Society and its Enemies"…I started to apply the concept of reflexivity to the understanding of social affairs, and particularly of financial markets, in the early 1960s before evolutionary systems theory was born…" The first chapter of this book, wherein he explains this concept, can be found at http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/soros.htm.

P-S
If a person decides to self-activate their intellect they need lots of books. Libraries loan books. My local community college library has a ?'Friends of the Library' membership that allows me, for a yearly fee of $25, to take out on loan any book I desire.