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by guenthert 16 days ago
'social physics of conversation'? Were social dynamics of conversations meant?
2 comments

“Social Physics” is Alex Pentland’s term for this kind of analysis. He’s been using it for a decade or two https://a.co/d/0jcnmbap it’s almost a trademark at this point. Most people (including me when I was working on this stuff) refer to it as human dynamics

That being said, August Comte came up with the name back in the 19th century before settling on “Sociology”

No physics werw involved in this article. But I guess it makes it appear more "sciency"
You can to some extent model a flexible number of conversations in a room in terms of a kind of graph theory: duration, number of participants, correlations or overlap between participants, and so on. The assertion here is that those particulars change the fundamental nature of what is taking place. Though “kinetics” or “mechanics” are probably more apt terms for the framework of those interactions, I see no reason to dismiss it out of hand.
You know, strictly speaking, a guinea pig isn't really a pig either. If you were expecting real physics, you should have realized from the word “social” that it wouldn't be in there. Particle families aren't really families either. Quantum mechanical spin and flavor are just metaphors, too. Welcome to human language.
Wrong. Energy, velocity, and flow characteristics are central to this analysis. The term Social Physics differentiates this context from Physics.
Energy and velocity are science terms because they have very specific meanings. If you use them in a completely different way, that's not science, that's just science-themed marketing vibes.
But the terms are not used properly. It's like "vibrations" in esoteric contexts.

There is no such thing as "social physics"

Sounds like cargo culting.
"Social physics" is pseudo-science abusing the name of physics and actual scientific terms to pretend it's even in the same ballpark.