[FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow

[Marcus Daniels]

Glen writes:

< But, in my ignorant understanding of the process, neither physics nor mathematical paradox resolution rely on that. It's always some munging of old things to arrive at the new things, including munging the logic by which the implications are inferred. Why is "shut up and calculate" so unnatural? >
    
One recollection from many years ago was debugging a generational garbage collector (GGC).  The program with the GGC would crash after hours due to a memory corruption that manifest itself via multiple layers of indirection.    C programs often have memory overruns that create similarly baffling outcomes, but this was worse due the complexity of the algorithm.   The advice I got from one expert was to ratchet it down on degree of freedom at a time.  It was incredibly tedious, days of work, and required systematic bookkeeping.   I eventually found the problem.   That reductionist approach from experiences like that, is burned into my psyche and has paid-off many times.    The alternative is suspect to me at a primal level.    Pulling up stakes and trying something else only slightly different is wasted motion.   There has to be some clear stopping evidence to show an approach is flawed before one pulls up stakes.   Otherwise it is just a game of musical chairs.   So to me jumping between different modeling approaches or "views" speaks not to plasticity but a lack of commitment; it is an act of desperation.

Obviously this is not a justification.

Marcus