My... "Problem"?

[wolven7]

Science favours simplicity of explanation, often mistaking it for elegance of application.

There is elegance in complexity, and complex situations are often the more correct reflection of reality.

Calling "Occam's Razor" on every situation is as much to say you'll stick your fingers in your ears and go "la la la! I'm not listening," and if you hear hoofbeats on cobblestone streats, in the fog of an evening, your firsts thought shouldn't be "zebra," but neither should it be "horse;" at most specific, you think 'a horse-like, or "equine" creature.'

Ever listen to Bach? Would you call that simple?

How about elegant?

[Edit: Tagged by mech_angel: 'Rules are easy, just post 10 things that recently made you happy! Tag 10 people and force them to post this meme on their LJs.

1) mech_angel
2) Eureka
3) Coffee
4) The onrushing Fall.
5) Conversations in the department.
6) Finding old friends
7) Being evil, sometimes.
8) Heroes
9) Viva Caligula
10) The DethAlbum

Tagging:

greygirlbeast
spinallandscape
mendori
comorbid
kenix
danschaffer (mainly because he's too busy to do so)
hametsunosaturn
the_spirit_room
ladymerrydeath
jaythebarbarian

There you go.]

Comments

[unknownbinaries.livejournal.com]

By it's own (simplest!) definition, simple is sometimes simply itself.

Elegance can be complex; it's all in how well it all ties together.

Silly scientists. The world is not simple.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Exactly. :)

[razelore.livejournal.com]

Depending upon the level of fog and how well I can hear things, my first thoughts tend towards minotaur or satyr...

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, fog level is Definitely a factor, there.

[razelore.livejournal.com]

Of course, given a high level of fog, any sound makes me think 'ZOMBIES!!!'

But when I picture fog, I always think of Mr. the Ripper's London.

Re: Bach

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Heheh. Yeah. Kind of iconic, that.

Bach

[davidsfoley.livejournal.com]

Actually, quite a bit of Bach is very simple indeed. His genius is how he "gussied it up," and made everyone else before or since pale in comparison.
But seriously, if you strip away much of the elaboration, he used several simple formulae to write an inordinate amount of top-notch work.

This is not to knock him at all, when I was discovering some of the underlying simplicity of much of his work, it made me appreciate him all the more. Not to mention, even if the basis is simple, the elaborations are extraordinary.

Re: Bach

[wolven.livejournal.com]

The elaborations and variations on themes, the building and interweaving of musical voices are, honestly, why I listen to Bach, at all.

Re: Bach

[davidsfoley.livejournal.com]

One of the few people who, to my mind, managed to pull off accessible "head music."

Re: Bach

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Bach and Mozart are favourites of mine.. Intellectual and visceral stimulation, for the duality-win.

[danschaffer.livejournal.com]

1. coffee
2. tea
3. coffee
4. tea
5. coffee
6. tea
7. coffee
8. tea
9. coffee
10. Bach (peer pressure)

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Over-Caffeination is a dangerous thing. As I find out daily...

Bach will also keep one wide awake.

[the-spirit-room.livejournal.com]

In no particular order...

1. The lovely man I'm dating
2. Cooking...anything, from scratch
3. The A I got on my history test
4. Watching my cats go practically rabid while attacking the red dot of a laser pointer
5. Keeping up with my bills - paying them? No. Staying on top of them and feeling responsible? Absolutely.
6. Being in school once more...learning is truly a passion
7. Receiving a call, text, e-mail, etc...from someone just because they're thinking of you.
8. Reclaiming my position at work and having people work for me again
9. Arrival of Fall/cooling of the weather (finally!)
10. Making new friends/becoming closer with those I already knew

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Making new friends and keeping the old is always awesome. :)

[nausved.livejournal.com]

I'd always understood that Ocham's Razor was only to be used in specific cases. For example, if you're creating a mathematical model on population dynamics, it works best if you keep it as simple as possible while still getting the results you need; otherwise, you'll have far too much extraneous data too collect and the model will lose its usefulness. Or if you're tracing a population's evolutionary path, it is best to assume that the path has been gradual, not windy, and that shared traits are ancestral traits.

But, of course, people often take things too far, and Ocham's Razor is no exception. You should favor simplicity where simplicity is fitting; it is not some physical law that the universe must follow, but a general rule of thumb for thinking about a problem. The art of science revolves around knowing when to apply rules and knowing when to break them, and sometimes the simplicity of Ocham's Razor has to be broken--like in the case of convergent evolution.

(Note: I'm not sure if this is how other fields apply Ocham's Razor. I'm only familiar with a few of the science fields, in which Ocham's Razor basically states that you should stick with whichever theory is most consistent with the evidence and involves the fewest number of assumptions.)

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I think the assumptions, themselves, are a part of the problem... I think that in deferring to simplicity, most often, we miss a number of options...

As many things as we can process for potential explanations, I think we should.

[nausved.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course! You should always test for competing hypotheses.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

And my problem is that while that idea is given lipservice, it's too often not done.

[nausved.livejournal.com]

If you form a theory without testing for competing theories, you're breaking the system. You're missing the whole point of science. Scientists are supposed to be conservative--that's why it wasn't until the last decade or so that the science community as a whole embraced the theory of global climate change, even though they've suspected it since the 1880s. I thought that was the whole point of the scientific method and of Ocham's Razor--to test all potential explanations, as much as you are able, before coming to any conclusions. And even then, it's looked down upon if you say, "this is due to XYZ" rather than "this may be due to XYZ".

Are there any particular scientists that prompted this talk about Ocham's razor? It sounds like they need to go back to school.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

It was a series of encounters in scientific reportage, talking about the paranormal explanation or methods other than those of science, basically presupposing the correctness of that model.

It's a problem for me, as it's a circular justification model, within a field that supposedly abhors circular justification. :\