As a musician trained in the mathematical analysis of music, but terrible at science, I’m not sure my insight will help.
But in my field, groundbreakers are sometimes theorists, and sometimes not. A lot of theorists wait for creative people to do the heavy lifting, and then they come along and explain what the innovator did. And with many innovators, the academics have been glacially slow to catch up. It’s typical for them to just dismiss or ignore innovations.
Book-length scholarly writing is in its infancy with artists like Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, and Roscoe Mitchell, even though the last two are old, and the first is dead. And John Cage is widely derided as a joke, and his ideas mocked, even though he eloquently explained virtually everything he ever did. And i never even heard these names mentioned at all when I was getting a music degree in 2002.
So, I would guess that the world of physical innovation, or real-world problem-solving, wouldn’t be altogether different from what i’m describing. I assume it IS quite different, generally, but I also assume that while the ratio might be different, it would be likely in other fields that innovation and theory aren’t always coming from the same person, or in the same order. I also assume that some innovation, AND some theory, show up on the heels of both accidents and whims. And even following huge errors, too, I imagine.
If a scientist or engineer were to tell me my assumption is wrong, I would probably buy it. Mainly because I don’t have the energy to argue with a scientist. (I’d prefer to not even chat with an engineer.)
Until someone disabuses me of my wrongheaded notion, I’ll continue to suspect I’m correct.
People are mystified and then develop observational skills to catalog how things behave (science).
Inevitably as science has shown repeatedly throughout its history existing explanations fail and then we’re mystified again and start a new part of the scientific process over, to replace or expand beyond the failed ‘fact.’
Art rarely suffers from this phenomenon because artists are natural born mystics. And remain free of the annoying, know-it-all hubris that science often foments.
On one of the questions you actually asked about though -- what is an explanation?
I'm not totally sure, but it's definitely not in the words but in the pattern of meaning. And F=ma is also a kind of explanation (if you know what the symbols mean)
I feel like there might almost be a circular definition here, where it's something like "an explanation is a way of seeing that makes sense of things". But then what is "making sense", and what sorts of things count? Which gets back to Deutsch saying "things are real if they feature in one of our best explanations of something".
This problem feels suspiciously similar to me to the frame problem, which is about how we go about figuring out what is relevant given that any particular way of choosing between options already presupposes we somehow have chosen the most relevant way of categorizing our options, with combinatorical explosion. There's a delightful (and fairly short) paper on this topic and how relevance realization is itself an evolutionary puzzle, and how you can't define "relevance" in a static way any more than you can define evolutionary "fitness" in a static way. Slow is fit for a snail but not fit for a gazelle.
Jun 25, 2023·edited Jun 25, 2023Liked by Chris Best
A different critique I have is that Deutsch seems to be unable to imagine a noble savage, which is a problem for his explanations since noble savages have been uhhh empirically observed 😛
But it makes sense this wasn't incorporated, since it's really hard to conceive of how unconscious memetic evolution could have happened without traumatizing people into not being creative. I've been thinking about these topics for over a decade and read Deutsch 5 years ago, and only found a way to reconcile these in the last few months, when I read these two articles:
#2 makes the case that we had language and memes long before we had self-consciousness, and so the IDEA that my personal needs could be in conflict with what my memes are telling me (and I might choose to violate the memes) couldn't have occurred to me. I wouldn't have even had the word "me" at the time!
#1 fleshes out more of what that world might have been like experientially and epistemologically, and when I put it all together I get a sense of 3 memetic operating systems, the first and third of which have what you could call "honest memes", and the middle of which has memes that are in part based on deceiving their hosts. But the first kind of honesty is naive honesty, like a kid who hasn't learned that lying is possible yet.
Lots more I could say here -- staring at these questions and their implications is nearly a full-time thing for me -- but I'll pause here for now!
One of my favorite books as well! Which I also have some critiques of, notably that Deutsch seems to write as if we have transitioned from static to dynamic memes, when from my perspective OBVIOUSLY we're in a transition phase that has properties that can't be deduced from either the before or the after. Relatedly, he also seems naively optimistic to me, even while he writes about a different thing that phrase would mean, and convincingly argues he isn't *that*. He seems to not understand complex systems and the nature of hysteresis -- how it's possible for a system to easily find its way into a situation that takes 1000x the energy to find its way out of, and the idea that we might already have way too much momentum towards some sort of doom and no mere philosophy is sufficient to confidently say we aren't. Although we might as well act like we're in a world where our efforts can matter. (I'm not a doomer, I'm more of a militant agnostic about doom.)
Jul 28, 2023·edited Jul 28, 2023Liked by Chris Best
My scientific/engineering training involved the application of the scientific method whereby one observes and formulates a hypothesis, then designs experiments in an effort to determine whether or not the hypothesis as stated is true. If it is not, the hypothesis is modified (or a new one proposed) to better fit the data, and further experiments are performed. I think that may be what the author meant by "explanation."
I have a slight contribution on the “what is an explanation?” topic. I call this “I think, therefore I am. WTF?!? Therefore, you exist.”
All humans are world-modelers. We make micro predictions about what the future will be and then we move into the future that matches our preference. Except we are imperfect world modelers so sometimes we find the future we step into isn’t the one we hoped and have to update our model.
When two humans have competing world models against one another, say in a game of chess, those world models take on something like a fractal nature based on chains of suspicion that each player has to run to account for the world-models of the other player. This is really hard and a huge resource drain and we have to constantly update the world-models as the other player makes their moves.
If you define a person as a world-modeler with some set of goals then you get “I think, therefore I am.” If you use that definition then anything that is able to run consistently different goals that surprises the world modeler by creating that sort of recursive world-models you get “WTF?!? Therefore, you exist.”
So, I have to stop here and solve the problem “What is a thing?”
When you make a series of observations you try to incorporate that into your world model so you can make predictions because predictions are sort of what you fundamentally *are*. Eventually you find some constellation of phenomena that behaves in a regular, predictable pattern.
When you use language you dump that that explanation into another world-modeler’s model and give them the ability to see the same predictions play out. Whenever I am deeply convinced by something in real life, that is sort of how it happens. I hear an explanation and suddenly it’s like I can’t stop seeing it just *work* every place so it captivates you through its sheer predictive power.
Therefore, a good explanation is one where your world model is as compressed as possible with as few separate paradigms and which still allows you to make good predictions about how systems will behave across time.
I would like you to review the account on substack Authored by Chris Ness ( seekers of the truth). He has written multiple artuicals regarding myself and my team from a YouTube channel called Truthfinders. He has posted lies about us claiming we work for the FBI, MI5 and the Establishment which is untrue. We are a group of mums investigating the death of a lady in the UK called Nicola Bulley. His recent post doxes our person Facebook pictures, children's school and says a lot of untrue and frankly disgusting comments about us. His latest post is by far the worst but his previous post include photos of us snd more lies, defaming us as government shills. Its delusional and harassing us. The police in the UK are currently involved and I've been advised to contact yourself as its your platform His deformation originates from Your platform. I'm not criticising your platform, I like the concept. I just need you to help by reviewing the content Chis Ness is publishing and remove any post that defame and mention myself and other team mares at Truth Trithfinders. Or Truth Grinders he refers to us as. He also attacks multiple others unfairly and I hope you review these comments too. He has written vile comments about the family and friebds of Nicola Bulley, they are bereaved after her death. He claims she is not real and all a conspiracy.
Your cooperation would greatly be appreciated and I'm considering starting my own account with you as an author. My name is Jemny Miller (Jen) and my team include Joanne and Michelle Sojka and Jan Jordan. We do not work for any government agents. We are all parents and wish to protest our children and ourself. If you read Chris Nesses articals I'm sure you will agree they are concerning. He calls himself Chis's Substack I believe he may also be trying to impersonate yourself. He may also use the name "inside the cave "
- If you hadn't pointed out that engineers and physicists still argue over how wings generate lift then I'd have done it for you.
- The invention of lasers and semiconductors predate a full and proper understanding of the quantum effects they use. Same for quantum computing.
- Discussing 'explanation' often, sadly and inevitably, descends into 'what is truth, anyway?' and 'my opinion about my limited knowledge is fact, and is worth more to me than yours'.
- Humans may not be capable of understanding everything in one (or more) universe. We're built for this world, and this world alone.
- Descent from scientific method, knowledge, empirical evidence into belief and myth is a prerequisite for the descent of (wo)mankind.
(N.B. Some of the above may utilise Cunningham's Law).
As a musician trained in the mathematical analysis of music, but terrible at science, I’m not sure my insight will help.
But in my field, groundbreakers are sometimes theorists, and sometimes not. A lot of theorists wait for creative people to do the heavy lifting, and then they come along and explain what the innovator did. And with many innovators, the academics have been glacially slow to catch up. It’s typical for them to just dismiss or ignore innovations.
Book-length scholarly writing is in its infancy with artists like Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, and Roscoe Mitchell, even though the last two are old, and the first is dead. And John Cage is widely derided as a joke, and his ideas mocked, even though he eloquently explained virtually everything he ever did. And i never even heard these names mentioned at all when I was getting a music degree in 2002.
So, I would guess that the world of physical innovation, or real-world problem-solving, wouldn’t be altogether different from what i’m describing. I assume it IS quite different, generally, but I also assume that while the ratio might be different, it would be likely in other fields that innovation and theory aren’t always coming from the same person, or in the same order. I also assume that some innovation, AND some theory, show up on the heels of both accidents and whims. And even following huge errors, too, I imagine.
If a scientist or engineer were to tell me my assumption is wrong, I would probably buy it. Mainly because I don’t have the energy to argue with a scientist. (I’d prefer to not even chat with an engineer.)
Until someone disabuses me of my wrongheaded notion, I’ll continue to suspect I’m correct.
Mysticism and mystics proceed/proceeded science.
People are mystified and then develop observational skills to catalog how things behave (science).
Inevitably as science has shown repeatedly throughout its history existing explanations fail and then we’re mystified again and start a new part of the scientific process over, to replace or expand beyond the failed ‘fact.’
Art rarely suffers from this phenomenon because artists are natural born mystics. And remain free of the annoying, know-it-all hubris that science often foments.
if you'd like to get Deutsch on Substack, CB, perhaps you should contact Naval 👈🏼
and for those readers trying to make sense of this post...
Naval's pod might offer an onramp 👇🏼
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/naval/id1454097755?i=1000527663408
On one of the questions you actually asked about though -- what is an explanation?
I'm not totally sure, but it's definitely not in the words but in the pattern of meaning. And F=ma is also a kind of explanation (if you know what the symbols mean)
I feel like there might almost be a circular definition here, where it's something like "an explanation is a way of seeing that makes sense of things". But then what is "making sense", and what sorts of things count? Which gets back to Deutsch saying "things are real if they feature in one of our best explanations of something".
This problem feels suspiciously similar to me to the frame problem, which is about how we go about figuring out what is relevant given that any particular way of choosing between options already presupposes we somehow have chosen the most relevant way of categorizing our options, with combinatorical explosion. There's a delightful (and fairly short) paper on this topic and how relevance realization is itself an evolutionary puzzle, and how you can't define "relevance" in a static way any more than you can define evolutionary "fitness" in a static way. Slow is fit for a snail but not fit for a gazelle.
The paper: http://www.ipsi.utoronto.ca/sdis/Relevance-Published.pdf
A different critique I have is that Deutsch seems to be unable to imagine a noble savage, which is a problem for his explanations since noble savages have been uhhh empirically observed 😛
But it makes sense this wasn't incorporated, since it's really hard to conceive of how unconscious memetic evolution could have happened without traumatizing people into not being creative. I've been thinking about these topics for over a decade and read Deutsch 5 years ago, and only found a way to reconcile these in the last few months, when I read these two articles:
1. https://ranprieur.com/readings/preconquest.html
2. https://www.vectorsofmind.com/p/the-snake-cult-of-consciousness
#2 makes the case that we had language and memes long before we had self-consciousness, and so the IDEA that my personal needs could be in conflict with what my memes are telling me (and I might choose to violate the memes) couldn't have occurred to me. I wouldn't have even had the word "me" at the time!
#1 fleshes out more of what that world might have been like experientially and epistemologically, and when I put it all together I get a sense of 3 memetic operating systems, the first and third of which have what you could call "honest memes", and the middle of which has memes that are in part based on deceiving their hosts. But the first kind of honesty is naive honesty, like a kid who hasn't learned that lying is possible yet.
Lots more I could say here -- staring at these questions and their implications is nearly a full-time thing for me -- but I'll pause here for now!
One of my favorite books as well! Which I also have some critiques of, notably that Deutsch seems to write as if we have transitioned from static to dynamic memes, when from my perspective OBVIOUSLY we're in a transition phase that has properties that can't be deduced from either the before or the after. Relatedly, he also seems naively optimistic to me, even while he writes about a different thing that phrase would mean, and convincingly argues he isn't *that*. He seems to not understand complex systems and the nature of hysteresis -- how it's possible for a system to easily find its way into a situation that takes 1000x the energy to find its way out of, and the idea that we might already have way too much momentum towards some sort of doom and no mere philosophy is sufficient to confidently say we aren't. Although we might as well act like we're in a world where our efforts can matter. (I'm not a doomer, I'm more of a militant agnostic about doom.)
My scientific/engineering training involved the application of the scientific method whereby one observes and formulates a hypothesis, then designs experiments in an effort to determine whether or not the hypothesis as stated is true. If it is not, the hypothesis is modified (or a new one proposed) to better fit the data, and further experiments are performed. I think that may be what the author meant by "explanation."
Good piece; thanks for sharing. As a fellow Deutsch admirer I enjoyed reading this.
This is a good review and I enjoyed reading it and thinking about it. One like for you.
I have a slight contribution on the “what is an explanation?” topic. I call this “I think, therefore I am. WTF?!? Therefore, you exist.”
All humans are world-modelers. We make micro predictions about what the future will be and then we move into the future that matches our preference. Except we are imperfect world modelers so sometimes we find the future we step into isn’t the one we hoped and have to update our model.
When two humans have competing world models against one another, say in a game of chess, those world models take on something like a fractal nature based on chains of suspicion that each player has to run to account for the world-models of the other player. This is really hard and a huge resource drain and we have to constantly update the world-models as the other player makes their moves.
If you define a person as a world-modeler with some set of goals then you get “I think, therefore I am.” If you use that definition then anything that is able to run consistently different goals that surprises the world modeler by creating that sort of recursive world-models you get “WTF?!? Therefore, you exist.”
So, I have to stop here and solve the problem “What is a thing?”
When you make a series of observations you try to incorporate that into your world model so you can make predictions because predictions are sort of what you fundamentally *are*. Eventually you find some constellation of phenomena that behaves in a regular, predictable pattern.
When you use language you dump that that explanation into another world-modeler’s model and give them the ability to see the same predictions play out. Whenever I am deeply convinced by something in real life, that is sort of how it happens. I hear an explanation and suddenly it’s like I can’t stop seeing it just *work* every place so it captivates you through its sheer predictive power.
Therefore, a good explanation is one where your world model is as compressed as possible with as few separate paradigms and which still allows you to make good predictions about how systems will behave across time.
Really looking forward to your post on Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War after you read it
Someone got into the mushrooms.
Dear Chris Best
I would like you to review the account on substack Authored by Chris Ness ( seekers of the truth). He has written multiple artuicals regarding myself and my team from a YouTube channel called Truthfinders. He has posted lies about us claiming we work for the FBI, MI5 and the Establishment which is untrue. We are a group of mums investigating the death of a lady in the UK called Nicola Bulley. His recent post doxes our person Facebook pictures, children's school and says a lot of untrue and frankly disgusting comments about us. His latest post is by far the worst but his previous post include photos of us snd more lies, defaming us as government shills. Its delusional and harassing us. The police in the UK are currently involved and I've been advised to contact yourself as its your platform His deformation originates from Your platform. I'm not criticising your platform, I like the concept. I just need you to help by reviewing the content Chis Ness is publishing and remove any post that defame and mention myself and other team mares at Truth Trithfinders. Or Truth Grinders he refers to us as. He also attacks multiple others unfairly and I hope you review these comments too. He has written vile comments about the family and friebds of Nicola Bulley, they are bereaved after her death. He claims she is not real and all a conspiracy.
Your cooperation would greatly be appreciated and I'm considering starting my own account with you as an author. My name is Jemny Miller (Jen) and my team include Joanne and Michelle Sojka and Jan Jordan. We do not work for any government agents. We are all parents and wish to protest our children and ourself. If you read Chris Nesses articals I'm sure you will agree they are concerning. He calls himself Chis's Substack I believe he may also be trying to impersonate yourself. He may also use the name "inside the cave "
Here is a link to his page.
https://open.substack.com/pub/outsidethecave/p/team-establishment-the-gift-that?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I urge you to review ALL his posts with ethical consideration.
Kind regards
Jen and the Truthfinders team
- If you hadn't pointed out that engineers and physicists still argue over how wings generate lift then I'd have done it for you.
- The invention of lasers and semiconductors predate a full and proper understanding of the quantum effects they use. Same for quantum computing.
- Discussing 'explanation' often, sadly and inevitably, descends into 'what is truth, anyway?' and 'my opinion about my limited knowledge is fact, and is worth more to me than yours'.
- Humans may not be capable of understanding everything in one (or more) universe. We're built for this world, and this world alone.
- Descent from scientific method, knowledge, empirical evidence into belief and myth is a prerequisite for the descent of (wo)mankind.
(N.B. Some of the above may utilise Cunningham's Law).