Thursday, August 09, 2007
Common sense is overrated
In the early 1800s common sense said that cholera was caused by bad smells, not contaminated water. As a consequence at least 14000 people died. Cheers common sense, we owe you one!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Simple answers for burning philosophical questions
Q: Nature vs Nurture?
A: If a baby is brought up to adulthood by wolves then it is almost incapable of developing further when put in a modern human environment. About the only new skill that wolf children have been observed to develop is smoking. Nurture wins.
Q: What is Free Will?
A: You have more free will than PacMan. Why? Because PacMan lives in a very simple environment, which means there are less permutations of action for PacMan to choose from. Free will is completely dependent on environmental complexity. As soon as someone figures out how to predict the future of the universe, free will will come to an end.
Q: Is Plato's Cave valid?
Plato believed that all physical chairs are merely reflections of the pure essence of "chairness" that exists somewhere dimly revealed to us, like a reflection on the wall of a cave.
Plato got it completely arse about face. We develop mental models to explain and understand the nature and events of our environment. By necessity these models are simpler than the universe, partly because of the sheer volume and complexity of information in the world to deal with, but also because generalisation is a useful technique for dealing with many similar but not quite identical situations. The idea of pure essence of things appeals to us for these reasons. Consequently "chairness" is the reflection of physical chairs, not vice versa.
A: If a baby is brought up to adulthood by wolves then it is almost incapable of developing further when put in a modern human environment. About the only new skill that wolf children have been observed to develop is smoking. Nurture wins.
Q: What is Free Will?
A: You have more free will than PacMan. Why? Because PacMan lives in a very simple environment, which means there are less permutations of action for PacMan to choose from. Free will is completely dependent on environmental complexity. As soon as someone figures out how to predict the future of the universe, free will will come to an end.
Q: Is Plato's Cave valid?
Plato believed that all physical chairs are merely reflections of the pure essence of "chairness" that exists somewhere dimly revealed to us, like a reflection on the wall of a cave.
Plato got it completely arse about face. We develop mental models to explain and understand the nature and events of our environment. By necessity these models are simpler than the universe, partly because of the sheer volume and complexity of information in the world to deal with, but also because generalisation is a useful technique for dealing with many similar but not quite identical situations. The idea of pure essence of things appeals to us for these reasons. Consequently "chairness" is the reflection of physical chairs, not vice versa.
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