<div dir="ltr"><br><div><h2 id="gmail-:6li" class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)">Occam's razor is also good for efficient systems design. If you are just a farming system, all you need to know is that the sun comes up over your head (as if you are in the center of the universe) each morning, and goes down in the evening. And you can assume that your knowledge of the sun is the real sun. Those far simpler models are all you need to do farming in the most efficient way.</h2></div><div><h2 class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)"><br></h2></div><div><h2 class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)">But, if you want to dance in the heavens or engineer consciousness, you need more capable models.</h2></div><div><h2 class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)"><br></h2></div><div><h2 class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)"><br></h2></div><div><h2 class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)"><br></h2></div><div><h2 class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)"><br></h2></div><div><h2 class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)"><br></h2></div><div><h2 class="gmail-hP" tabindex="-1" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-weight:400;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:inline;outline:none;word-break:break-word;color:rgb(31,31,31)"><br></h2></div><div><font color="#1f1f1f" face="Google Sans, Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:22px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#1f1f1f" face="Google Sans, Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:22px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#1f1f1f" face="Google Sans, Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:22px;font-variant-ligatures:no-contextual"><br></span></font><span id="gmail-:6jw" class="gmail-J-J5-Ji" style="display:inline-flex;min-height:28px;vertical-align:bottom;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:22px"><div class="gmail-pG" aria-label="Important mainly because you often read messages with this label." role="img" id="gmail-:6ll" style="font-size:0px;padding:0px;width:20px;height:20px;margin:0px 8px 0px 0px;display:inline-block"><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 11:29 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Which is the simpler formulation of Occam's Razor, "the simplest explanation is preferred because it involves the fewest assumptions" or "the simplest explanation is the best"? ;> </span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Ben</span><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:small"><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif">The second one should read: the simplest explanation is the best because it's the simplest and involves the fewest assumptions - it does NOT mean that it is anywhere closer to the correct answer because we do not know that. bill w</font></span></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:08 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
On 20/01/2023 22:53, bill w wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div lang="x-unicode">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">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;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">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;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Agree? bill w</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Well, it's not so much a matter of agreeing, as a matter of are you
correct? You are, as far as I understand it.<br>
<br>
However:<br>
<br>
Which is the simpler formulation of Occam's Razor, "the simplest
explanation is preferred because it involves the fewest assumptions"
or "the simplest explanation is the best"? ;><br>
<br>
Ben<br>
</div>
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