<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><b style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="">If a phenomena is complex, then use a complex theory, but only as complex as needed.</b> Einstein once said, "<span class="ILfuVd" lang="en"><span class="hgKElc"><b class="">Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” If two theories explain the data equally well, choose the simpler one. The principle of simplicity > complexity still holds all else being equal.</b></span></span><br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 20, 2023, at 7:18 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" class="">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">It seems that what you wrote illustrates the principle. More complex theories naturally have more assumptions which can go wrong. But - there are no simple theories which can explain complex phenomena. bill w</div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 4:28 PM Gadersd via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" class="">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class="">In the limit simpler theories are more likely to be correct than more complex theories. Algorithmic information theory has codified this principle in rigorous mathematics. There is a proof that the preference of simpler theories, in this case measured in the number of bits defining computer programs, leads to a guarantee of being correct in the long run. Additionally it is proven that this preference in algorithmic information theory leads to correctness more rapidly than other method. A preference for more complex theories on the other hand has no such guarantee.<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 20, 2023, at 5:12 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank" class="">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large">Just reading An Immense World, by Ed Jong (author of I Contain Multitudes). Surprisingly, he makes a common error: he wrote that Occam's Razor meant that the simplest explanation is the best. Totally wrong. It is as likely to be wrong as any other explanation.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large">It means that the simplest explanation is preferred because it involves the fewest assumptions (entities, Occam wrote), and as we know, assumptions can be wrong.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large">Agree? bill w</div></div>
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