Comment by apercu 3 days ago
I’ve noticed the inverse as in the more I understand something, the less “simple” it looks.
Apparent simplicity usually comes from weak definitions and overconfident summaries, not from the underlying system being easy.
Complexity is often there from the start, we just don’t see it yet.
I think it's more of a curve from my point of view.
Beginner: I know nothing and this topic seems impossible to grasp.
Advanced beginner: I get it now. It's pretty simple.
Intermedite: Hmm, this thing is actually very complicated.
Expert: It's not that complicated. I can explain a simple core covering 80% of it. The other 20% is an ocean of complexity.
I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree. Simplicity comes from strong definitions, and "infinite" complexity comes from weak ones.
If you're always chasing the next technicality then maybe you didn't really know what question you were looking to answer at the onset.
>If you're always chasing the next technicality
This sounds like someone who has never studied physics.
"Oh wow, I figured out everything about physics... except this one little weird thing here"
[A lifetime of chasing why that one little weird thing occurs]
"I know nothing about physics, I am but a mote in an endless void"
---
Strong or weak definitions don't save you here, what you are looking for is error bars and acceptable ranges.
Your response along with others is proving my point in an unfortunate way.
If you think I'm saying that the world is not infinitely complex, you are missing the point.
IMO both perspectives have their place. Sometimes what's missing is the information, sometimes what's lacking is the ability to communicate it and/or the willingness to understand it. So in different circumstances either viewpoint may be appropriate.
What's missing more often than not, across fields of study as well as levels of education, is the overall commitment to conceputal integrity. From this we observe people's habitual inability or unwillingness to be definite about what their words mean - and their consequent fear of abstraction.
If one is in the habit of using one's set of concepts in the manner of bludgeons, one will find many ways and many reasons to bludgeon another with them - such as if a person turned out to be using concepts as something more akin to clockwork.
Yes, we're in complete agreement about conceptual integrity.
Reality is such that, without integrity, you can prove almost anything you want. As long as your bar for "prove" is at the very bottom.
Simple counterexample: chess. The rules are simple enough we regularly teach them to young children. There's basically no randomness involved. And yet, the rules taken together form a game complex enough that no human alive can fully comprehend their consequences.
This is actually insightful: we usually don't know the question we are trying to answer. The idea that you can "just" find the right question is naive.
> Simplicity comes from strong definitions
Sure, you can put it this way, with the caveat that reality at large isn't strongly definable.
You can sort of see this with good engineering: half of it is strongly defining a system simple enough to be reasoned about and built up, the other half is making damn sure that the rest of reality can't intrude, violate your assumptions and ruin it all.
There's a great analog with this in chess as well.
~1200 - omg chess is so amazing and hard. this is great.
~1500 - i'm really starting to get it! i can beat most people i know easily. i love studying this complex game!
~1800 - this game really isn't that hard. i can beat most people at the club without trying. really I think the only thing separating me from Kasparov is just a lot of opening prep and study
~2300 - omg this game is so friggin hard. 2600s are on an entirely different plane, let alone a Kasparov or a Carlsen.
Magnus Carlsen - "Wow, I really have no understanding of chess." - Said without irony after playing some game and going over it with a computer on stream. A fairly frequent happening.