tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post9166891525231202667..comments2024-03-28T19:14:33.619-07:00Comments on The Splintered Mind: Preliminary Evidence That the World Is Simple (An Exercise in Stupid Epistemology)Eric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-24531766643327769732013-04-30T19:30:15.685-07:002013-04-30T19:30:15.685-07:00I think critics of trying to find less humanocentr...I think critics of trying to find less humanocentric variables (your first option) would be hard-pressed to say that we must assume any one set of variables must be equally humanocentric, or that we can't tel, as any other. Or at least, couldn't assert this without also making a pretty strong statement about the possibility of knowledge.Michael Catonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01017910055699348111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-58081412876156385422013-04-23T10:13:08.823-07:002013-04-23T10:13:08.823-07:00(That last option might be broadly Kantian.)(That last option might be broadly Kantian.)Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-64830527870694032512013-04-23T10:12:51.024-07:002013-04-23T10:12:51.024-07:00Michael: Yes! I have been thinking a similar thin...Michael: Yes! I have been thinking a similar thing. I see two options: Find a rigorous, non-humanocentric way of choosing variables. That seems hard, and the technique seems likely to be contentious, but maybe it could be done. Or stick with the "stupid" haphazard chose of confessedly humanocentric variables and confess the relativity of the conclusion.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-84241016733736738742013-04-22T19:42:17.558-07:002013-04-22T19:42:17.558-07:00I read this when you posted it and I've been t...I read this when you posted it and I've been thinking about it since then. It's a pretty interesting experiment, but I think there is a clear and non-mysterious answer here. <br /><br />You state: "I can use my data to test the Wild Complexity Thesis, on the assumption that the variables I have chosen are at least roughly representative of the kinds of variables we encounter in the world, in day-to-day human lives as experienced in a technologically advanced Earthly society. (I don't generalize to the experiences of aliens or to aspects of the world that are not salient to experience, such as Planck-scale phenomena.)"<br /><br />We only perceive and understand a very narrow slice of the universe. By restricting the variables to those things relevant to human experience, you're introducing a massive bias. And that bias is likely to be toward non-wild variables. Why? <br /><br />It seems trivial to say that the relationships among the extremely man-made phenomena you've listed (library books, McDonald's) are likely to present as simple, highly clustered sets of datapoints. But that this should be so even for the non-man-made things like stars is more interesting. But I think the reason why this is has to do with the way our nervous systems came to be and how they're designed. Something as complex as a tissue capable of representing these things, i.e. the nervous system, is more likely to organize itself along the lines of simpler, easier-to-predict (more clustered, less wild) variables. <br /><br />That is to say, evolution is more likely to produce replicators that get and act on information about non-wild variables, and that restricts what we as products of evolution perceive in the first place. For some variable where the next value is likely to be wildly distant, what's the advantage in developing sense organs to detect it or a nervous system that can store and compare it? Why bother? Consequently even by picking the natural objects that we can notice, we can't escape enriching the set of chosen variables for non-wildness, because we're not built to experience or notice the patterns of wild variables in the first place.<br /><br />The obvious next question is how we would go about decreasing our bias toward non-wildness when selecting these variables. We might want to do exactly the opposite of what you suggested, and include ONLY Planck-scale phenomena. If we're able to choose variables far from the domain of human experience and they're still non-wild, then that does a better job of making the Wild Complexity Thesis unlikely.Michael Catonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01017910055699348111noreply@blogger.com