Lives and Death of Moore's Law

[DemoCoder]

No, Moore'a Law is no different than simply observing population statistics or stock market curves. It's a curve fit. There's no "stock market law", but we do know that the real rate of return over a given time window, say 10 years, is positive and atleast 5-12% (depending on the study) For Moore's law, So what if it doesn't obey the 18 months "rule". I only care about the reality of what's happening, and the reality of what's happening is that just a few years ago, I was playing with chips that had 1 million transistors, and now I have one that has 100M transistors in my computer. There were some accelerations and deccelerations along the way, but the end result is a 100x increase. Does anyone care about playing semantics here?


I don't need some pseudo-Malthusian social scientist to diffuse "Moore's law" or try to break techno-optimism. We all know exponential growth in density can't last, but as Richard Feynman said "There's plenty of room at the bottom" When 2D-lithography runs out, there is the possibility of 3D process technology. When that doesn't cut it, molecular computing becomes a possibility. (and please, don't bother with the "nanotechnology isn't possible" rant)

Point being: exponential increases will run out, but there's still a good 10-20 years left.


As for evolution vs creation: calling evolution a "theory" is a canard. Yes, gravity is a theory as well. Point is: weight of evidence supports evolution and there is no legitimate counterevidence. There is no evidence for creation, plenty of counter evidence, such that the creation theory itself has to constantly be revised in order to fit the counterevidence.

 

[Vince]

As for evolution vs creation: calling evolution a "theory" is a canard. Yes, gravity is a theory as well. Point is: weight of evidence supports evolution and there is no legitimate counterevidence. There is no evidence for creation, plenty of counter evidence, such that the creation theory itself has to constantly be revised in order to fit the counterevidence.

Um, it's called Occam's Razor - comes in handy in arguments like this.

 

[DemoCoder]

Occam's Razor can be abused and misinterpreted by many, and creationists are experts at misunderstanding science and twisting it, e.g. witness their mistaken usage of thermodynamics in their arguments.

Occam's Razor does not say "the simplest explanation is best", because taken to the logical conclusion, it could be used to eliminate everything. What it does say is do not multiply hypothesis unneccessarily to explain the evidence. Intelligent Design is an "extra" baggage that is not needed to explain the available evidence. More specifically, "If you have two theories which both explain the observed facts then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along".

In mathematics, there are often many many formulations that fit a given set of data and they may even be isomorphic, so the simplest one is preferred, but not neccessarily "more correct". Many Worlds is not neccessary more or less correct than the Copenhagen interpretation or the Transactional Interpretation, all of them more or less, fit the facts. Here, we can invoke Occam to arrive at our preferred theory, but in theory, an experiment could come along to eliminate the shorter hypothesis.

On the other hand, the creation theory (which out of the 100+ ones?) does not fit the available physical facts we can find today. Now, the story of evolution itself has gaps in the information, but gaps are not the same as counterexamples. We didn't have the Top Quark for years in physics, but the fact that we didn't observe it yet, didn't invalidate the theory. Finding a particle we did not expect and can't explain, would invalidate it.


But more than this, Occam's Razor boils down to a kind of logical positivism: Do not invoke explanations that involve things we can't observe, find evidence for, etc.

 

[Humus]

I think creation vs. evolution belongs to the general forum.

 

[Vince]

Occam's Razor does not say "the simplest explanation is best"

Never said that, your making an argument where none is necessary.

More specifically, "If you have two theories which both explain the observed facts then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along".

This is flat out wrong - infact, it's a much more powerful verson of what William of Ockham origionally said. He said:

Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily

Take it no further... I can look the actual latin verse up in a book if you want.

Intelligent Design is an "extra" baggage that is not needed to explain the available evidence.

Actually, if you'd like to debate this, Dirac once said that you should striver for Mathmatical beauty; and when it happens that you require simplicity and beauty, but they clash, you should pick the later.

We didn't have the Top Quark for years in physics, but the fact that we didn't observe it yet, didn't invalidate the theory. Finding a particle we did not expect and can't explain, would invalidate it.

Again, your over stating what William said and using it to specifically for the existence of a specific subatomic particle - which provisions were already made for in SU(3) IIRC.

Instead, look at what it has accomplished. Proven Einstein's Relativity because it made the same provisions as Poicare's theory, except it didn't 'Multiple unecessarily" the way to reach this goal. If you don't know, Poicare's theory relied on the existence of an Ether - which increased the complexity uncessisarily.

Kind of funny that you rant about how people use Occam's Razor, yet quote a false way of describing it.

EDIT: A somewhat contemporary example (although not true today) would be using Occam's Razor to disprove the somewhat fucked up Standard Model - with it'a lack of symmetry and 'glued/bolted-on' additions - in favor of the String Theory of the 70's. [I won't even tough M-Thoery now]

 

[Nagorak]

I have a hard time understanding how anyone can claim creationism to be simpler than evolution. It seems to me that life evolving slowly on its own over millions and millions of years is much less complex, rather than having a supreme being who completely defines all natural laws that we know come along and just create everything. I won't even bother going into the facts since that's not the point here, but how the hell is creationism "simpler"? Adding some outside force to explain everything is the grandest example of overhypothesizing...

 

[DemoCoder]

I provided the original latin translation (do not multiply unneccessarily) as well as the modern usage of the concept today. The fact is, modern philosphers of science consider Occam's Razor merely a justification for logical positivism, that's the point.

Who said what, and exactly what, is really an unimportant appeal to authority, a logical fallacy. The original point was that creationists have tried to apply Occam's Razor to support creationism and have done so by misinterpreting the context in which it is supposed to be applied, in the same manner that they have misinterpreted the second law of thermodynamics by applying it to a non-closed system.

You misunderstood the point about the Top Quark. Of course the provision was made for it, we were expecting it, and it took a long time and we found it. There are also gaps in the fossil record of evolution and creationists use these gaps to argue that evolution is incorrect because we haven't found them yet I was making the analogy that merely because there was a "gap" in the "quark fossil record", doesn't mean the Standard Model was proven incorrect.

However, if we found, say, 4 extra quarks that the theory didn't predict, then the theory would be incorrect and need to be revised. That's what I said, you should actually try reading my messages before responding.

 

[Vince]

The fact is, modern philosphers of science consider Occam's Razor merely a justification for logical positivism, that's the point.

Ohh, Ok, I agree with that.... all I needed to hear. I don't think thats what William of Ockham intended, but I agree.

However, if we found, say, 4 extra quarks that the theory didn't predict, then the theory would be incorrect and need to be revised. That's what I said, you should actually try reading my messages before responding.

So, because you stated something incorrectly in the context of a larger picture I shouldn't question it? I read what you stated...

I won't even bother going into the facts since that's not the point here, but how the hell is creationism "simpler"? Adding some outside force to explain everything is the grandest example of overhypothesizing...

It's not, you'd have to be pretty ignorant (sadly, looks to fellow conservatives):

"We could still imagine that there is a set of laws that determines events completely for some supernatural being, who could observe the present state of the universe without disturbing it. However, such models of the universe are not of much interest to us mortals. It seems better to employ the principle known as Occam's razor." - Stephen Hawkings

I mean, how does one [a conscousness] create a Universe and not have the slightest influence/disturbance upon it? Didn't Schrodinger end this like 70 years ago?

 

[DemoCoder]

Well, Einstein was an "American Deist" who believed in a god who was like a clockmaker. He setup the gears, assembled the mechanism, but then left it to its own devices. An impersonal God who cares nothing for us, just a grand programmer of the universe.

Taoists, on the other hand, can see that God isn't a being, God IS Being itself. That is, you've heard the phrase "we are made of stars (stuff)", well the equivalent Taoist phrase would be "we are made of godstuff" Each and every entity in the universe is a piece of God, and together the whole totality of everything is God, so god isn't an object, he is a subject. He isn't an observer, he is the process of observing.

But that is small consolation to billions of people who believe in a personal all powerful god who monitors their bedroom and cares about their sex life.

 

[Vince]

Your getting way to Philisophical; relating 'God' to.. basically, consciousness - Besides, I haven't read about Taoism/Daoism since... <Shutter>...

But, being an interesting topic, I think that the instince and desire for a "God" or Superior Beings of the other big 7 religions has more to do with man's inherient NeuroPscyology and Philisopical tendencies than a true physical past.

As you touched on, I think we have much to learn of the world around us as we come to grips with the realisations that the real world, the one we'll never interact with 1st hand, is much diffrent than the one we percieve.

But that is small consolation to billions of people who believe in a personal all powerful god who monitors their bedroom and cares about their sex life.

This was just too funny to pass up and not give a