[MD] Forget about Empiricism, no thanks.

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Ian

On 25 Oct. you wrote:

> Hi Bo, you said to David M,

> "Yes, things are complicated but history has told us that complexity
> is the lack of the right explanation. Ref. the Ptolemaian cosmology's
> baffling complexity and Copernicus who made it wonderful simple."
 
> Don't agree Bo, yes in your example (which is Pythagorean / Netwonian
> thru and thru

Newtonian Physics is used on all "normal" cosmic phenomena 
f.ex. to compute the orbits of all heavenly bodies from planets to 
grains of dust. Relativity is to my knowledge only applied on 
extreme gravity and velocities, Quantum on the extreme small. 
However, these "physics" don't contradict each other, they are 
one single line of intellectual (objective) value evolution.

The Ptolemaian-Copernican shift took place in the centuries 
when Intellect was re-born after the Medieval hibernation, thus 
the Ptolemaian system was a transient one, it professed to 
explain (intellectually, objectively) the firmament, yet it was 
based on social value's assumption that earth was THE universe 
OK, I know you know, but wait.   

> - still ignores the 3-body problem and relativistic
> effects) a simple transform of axis from earth centerd to sun centred
> simplified the baffling motions. But there is no "complexity" in this
> example - just simple geometry - perfect circles. The second
> explanation is higher quality, but the level of complexity is
> unchanged.

It's possible from the 
Pythagorean/Copernican/Newtoian/Einsteinian/Heisenbergian 
(intellectual) - cosmology to turn back and see how the 
Ptolemaian worked, that it MAY work using the relativist effects, 
simple geometry, perfect circles and axes you speak about, but 
you must admit that this is intellectual games. When computing 
the Apollo moon trips or whatever it would be very cumbersome 
to load a program with the Ptolemaian cosmology's data. I guess 
the late 1960 computers would have been working to this day to 
deliver any results.    
 
> Complexity is not in general simplified by the right explanation.
> Complexity - two-way causality as David's example suggests - really
> exists and is represented by the emergent patterns or "attractors" -
> but isn't "explained" away.

What was David's example? He said:

> > DM: Religion is made up of many, often conflicting, aims, seeing
> > one as the most significant is a simplification.

The semitic kind of religions (often considered as the only kind) is 
nowadays social value's most prominent pattern but there was a 
past when there were no religion in this sense, only the 
mythologies and and - even further back - the animist, totem, ... 
etc. world-views, but what's common for all is that existence is
malleable, something that mankind through rituals could sway. 
Not the inert, material, indifferent, objective one that eternal 
natural laws applied to.   

> We have an expression in my industry - "the conservation of
> complexity" - in solving information management problems we always use
> "simpifications" but that doesn't simplify the problem it just
> simplifies the incomplete solution - reality (and reality including
> sentient beings - like humans) remains complex.

As said, from intellect's high perch we may see all kinds of 
complexities and subtle contexts, but the intellectual quest for the 
most simple and beautiful general solution prevails and the MOQ 
meets intellect's criterion, yet undermined intellect in its old SOM 
role and consequently couldn't "stay at home"  ---- OK Enough!!  

Bo