Simplicity
Science writers have touted the idea that the most correct is often the most simple. I like that, but is that all the story? Simple today may not fit tomorrow. Will a simple, seemingly obvious, yet incorrect, assumption of the past lead to complexity in the future?
I suppose we all have our ideas of simple. A best case description might be something that takes little time, easy to understand, few in number, seems obvious, coincides with math, describes our observances, easy to describe or explain, and seems rational? You know__ this might describe the Astronomy of Ptolemy as compared with Copernicus.
My main thrust about simplicity is: Simple might not be self evident.
Few in number? There are not all that many pieces, or men, comprising a game of chess, but how many combinations of moves can be contrived in these contests?
Discovery or creativity might be just a flash of inspiration. But I remember a poet being asked how long it took to write a poem. He related something like: To write on the paper, not long, but the creation of the poem might have begun from when I was born, or maybe it started at the beginning of time...
Technology seems to play a large part. With new technology we can eliminate some dead ends, but create many new paths. But, with new technology do we use new reasoning to analyze our observations?
If I travel a road for a long period in search of a particular restaurant I favor, without finding it; should I go back and try a different road, or should I just dine anywhere with others I met along the way? It has been over 300 years since Newton's work on gravitation. But, actually how gravity works has not been yet discovered. The chapters from here on, will appear strange to many, but if given enough thought, may actually possess more simplicity than what we have today. I have retraced my steps, and this time I believe I have read the road signs more correctly, to arrive at my desired place for dinner.
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Along the lines of scientific simplicity and integrity...
"Occam,s Razor [William of Ockham] : A scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities."
"From Sir Isaac Newton: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes."
"From Pooh and the Philosophers__ Unlike his Principle of Verifiability... between meaningful and meaningless propositions, Sir Karl Raimund Popper's Principle of Falsifiability is intended to distinguish between scientific and non-scientific. Given the fact that no general proposition of fact can be certain, as opposed to highly probable, how are we to distinguish scientific statements from those that are non-scientific? Popper's answer... while no accumulation of instances could prove a theory correct, one counter-instance could disprove it, at least in part. In Popper's view, any statement that claims to be scientific must in principle be capable of being falsified if it is indeed incorrect."
A bit from a chapter entitled Speech concerning definitions... Thomas Hobbes gives us: "By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge, to examine the definitions of former authors: and either to correct them , where they are negligently set down, or to make them himself. For errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see, but cannot avoid without reckoning anew from the beginning, in which lies the foundation of their errors. From whence it happens they that trust to books so as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not; and at last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves, but spend time in fluttering over their books; as birds that entering by the chimney, and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in. So that in the right definition of names lies the first use of speech, which is the acquisition of science; and in wrong, or no definitions, lies the first abuse, from which proceed all false and senseless tenets: which make those men that take their instruction from the authority of books, and not from their own meditation, to be as much below the condition of ignorant men as men endued with the true science are above it. For between true science and erroneous doctrines, ignorance is in the middle. Natural sense and imagination are not subject to absurdity. Nature itself cannot err; and as men abound in copiousness of language, so they become more wise, or more mad, than ordinary. Nor is it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or, unless his memory be hurt by disease or ill constitution of organs, excellently foolish. For words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but are the money of fools that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man..."
Lastly, Francis Bacon wrote: "It is idle to expect any great advancements in science from the super-inducing and engrafting of new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve forever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress."
