[FRIAM] ockham's razor losing its edge?

[steve smith]

convergence to the one true mutual understanding!

    time to (re)diverge into pluralism

...to be continued

ad infinitum <grin>


On 1/31/25 5:33 PM, glen wrote:
> Yes, the EC is schematic. The markings on the edge are tightly 
> coupled. But the contents of the panel vary widely. And yes if you 
> change the miter saw example to "cut to complementary angles" 
> regardless of whether "90°" = 90°, then that would be a scheme as 
> well. The complementarity is tight. The actual angle(s) are allowed to 
> vary.
>
> Complicatedness is contrasted with parsimonious. Both can be monist in 
> the sense that they can be the One True Model. Biologists come in this 
> package. They can realize that biology is super complicated, but still 
> believe there's a One True (very complicated) way of understanding 
> biology.
>
> By contrast things like the cosmic underdetermination theorem suggest 
> that there's no way to well-model or get One True perspective of the 
> universe. Pluralism is required. The contrast isn't monism vs. 
> dualism. It's monism vs. pluralism. Dualism has much the same problem 
> monism has except rather than being prejudiced to 1 thing (method, 
> model, understanding, etc.), you're prejudiced to 2 things.
>
> And finally, yes, I think you're at least a methodological pluralist 
> already.
>
> On 1/31/25 2:33 PM, steve smith wrote:
>>
>> On 1/31/25 1:20 PM, glen wrote:
>>> So even though you understand my basic point of [ab]use and the 
>>> tolerance of error or tolerance of ambiguity, I'm not hearing any 
>>> recognition of schematic systems in your responses. It's fine, of 
>>> course. It would be reasonable to take the absence of my language in 
>>> your responses as an implicit rejection of the game I'm trying to 
>>> define. In fact, I kinda hope that's the case because I enjoy that 
>>> kind of subtle game play. But just in case it's not ...
>>>
>>> The in general, observation bias, and in specific, schematic bias, 
>>> I'm pointing to cf. multiverse analysis (pluralism) versus either 
>>> parsimony or complicatedness (monism) won't be understood without 
>>> understanding what it means to be schematic in one's "calibration". 
>>> In perhaps obsolete terminology, it amounts to requirements analysis 
>>> with predicates like "must have" versus "nice to have" versus "don't 
>>> care", etc. 
>>
>> The easy answer is that I'm probably just entirely over my head in 
>> this conversation.
>>
>> I was focused (perhaps) mostly on your original opening line about 
>> parsimony being a red herring.  If I doubled down on the miter saw 
>> calibrationexample, it was because I thought you were willfully 
>> misunderstanding or ignoring the specifics of the example.   If I can 
>> recast it into "the schematic" (scare quotes to acknowledge I may be 
>> misunderstanding the concept in some fundamental way) then the issue 
>> might be to reframe the problem from "cutting at a specific angle" to 
>> "cutting two pieces at complementary angles which sum to the 
>> orthogonal to support a specific type of joinery within a specific 
>> range of constructions where orthogonality has specific value"?
>>
>> Attempting to understand you more better, I will focus here on what 
>> you call the "schematic".  If I understand you correctly, my EC 
>> registration example *was* schematic?  I'm lost when you equate 
>> (relate?) "complicatedness" to monism?  In this case monism as a 
>> single unified theory with plurality being it's complement or 
>> opposite.  I am used to this list arguing monism vs dualism (without 
>> my own dog in the fight) so probably didn't appreciate the nuance 
>> there.   In fact I think my lack of a dog in the monist/dualist fight 
>> is that (I think) I'm pretty pluralist at my core.   But maybe my 
>> words or behaviour say otherwise.
>
>
>
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