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Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

johnsalvatier.org

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Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#71

Post by foxhop »

This is an incredible read, very thought invoking.

I've never replaced stairs but I have learned enough of the "details" by repairing them (or being aware of them) to know it's a really hard to get right.

A single 1/4 inch difference between two steps can feel wrong; a 1/2 inch difference and people will likely stumble or tumble down them on their first approach. Our intuition and pattern recognition impacts how we solve problems. Some call it "muscle memory" but it's not just in our muscles, it's in our unconscious thought.

Like the author explains so well, once we move a detail into our unconscious it becomes part of us, transparent to us, "common sense"; and an unnoticed detail is completely hidden from us.

The details of reality can only be taught through experience, because once understood, they move almost instantly from hidden -> transparent.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#72

Post by falcolas »

dsr_ wrote: post #35
CurtMonash wrote: post #8

There's something of a connection here to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Two examples come to mind: 1. The narrator thinks it's important to have in your toolset hammers of multiple hardness, because your hammer should be softer than whatever material you're hammering on at the time. At least, that's how I remember it; I might well be wrong about -- well, about the DETAILS of that example. Please correct…

He’d been innovating extensively. He’d been having trouble with students who had nothing to say. At first he thought it was laziness but later it became apparent that it wasn’t. They just couldn’t think of anything to say. One of them, a girl with strong-lensed glasses, wanted to write a five-hundred-word essay about the United States. He was used to the sinking feeling that comes from statements like this, and sugge…

Err, Bozeman doesn't have an opera house. Certainly not one with a burger stand across Main Street.

Just sayin'

;)

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#73

Post by LeifCarrotson »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #55

I've always thought the whole idea of virtual reality is strange. Why would I want to experience the world through VR when I can experience reality instead? I suppose there are exceptions where it makes sense. Maybe if someone is physically incapable of having an experience, or the risk is too high, but for the most part I derive more joy from actually going outside and doing stuff than playing a video game equivalen…

> physically incapable of having an experience, or the risk is too high, but for the most part I derive more joy from actually going outside and doing stuff than playing a video game equivalent.

Or financially incapable of having the experience, or time constrained - and everyone is mortal and therefore time constrained.

I don't anticipate using VR to experience a walk in the local park, or (personally) mountain biking on the local singletrack because those are things I can do in real life with much more fidelity and have a much better experience. However, I could understand taking a walk in a park on another continent (or six other continents in one afternoon), or advising a friend whom I've raved about mountain biking to try the trail in VR before buying expensive equipment.

I'd rather have a compromise of some vast array of experiences across the world in low-detail VR, and also enjoy the limited amount of experiences I can enjoy in real life in full resolution, than to constrain myself to the small slice of the world that I can afford to physically experience.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#74

Post by aj7 »

One thing I’velearned is that a bad design becomes more complex as you progress through it. Sometimes, the complexity grows to eventually make the whole design unfeasible, and you have to abandon it.

In rare moments, designs become simpler as you progress. Irrelevant or neurotic features seem to melt away. That is bliss!

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#76

Post by littlestymaar »

jasode wrote: post #53

>Do you remember the insights that were crucial in learning to ride a bike or drive? The author mentioned bicycles and inadvertently missed an opportunity to show another "unknown reality" that beautifully illustrates his point. Consider typical adults (not physicists) with 20+ years of bicycle riding. If you ask them, "how does a bicycle turn?" , they'd respond that "you just lean into the direction of the turn and…

> If one human is teaching another human, you can leave the "countersteering" detail out and it won't matter. The 200 years of people learning how to ride bicycles is evidence of that.

This is actually a well-known fact about motorcycle, and it's taught in driving schools. It's just that their is no bicycle driving school and people just figure it by themselves. I'm pretty sure it takes more time though.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#77

Post by telchar »

dekhn wrote: post #69
jasode wrote: post #53

>Do you remember the insights that were crucial in learning to ride a bike or drive? The author mentioned bicycles and inadvertently missed an opportunity to show another "unknown reality" that beautifully illustrates his point. Consider typical adults (not physicists) with 20+ years of bicycle riding. If you ask them, "how does a bicycle turn?" , they'd respond that "you just lean into the direction of the turn and…

A long part of my scientific career has been unpacking simple statements about things like bike riding, and finding the underlying process is subtle, and reveals many interesting things. When I was a kid, I had a teacher who said that cutting paper wasn't a chemical change- no bonds were broken. That seemed odd to me, but after I had a PhD, I understood a few things better. That when you cut paper, mostly hydrogen bo…

I'll bite.. what are the huge implications?

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#79

Post by the_cat_kittles »

simias wrote: post #54

This article points out exactly why even though I like to tinker with a lot of stuff my main hobby is always programming. Because programming is more akin to writing down maths than building a staircase. Algorithms don't warp because of humidity, algorithms don't have leakage current. Sure computers have their quirks (overflows, floating point issues, UB etc...) but it's still a finite amount of knowledge unlike the…

this is a great point. but i think all those negatives are actually positives for lots of people, creating fun challenged

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#80

Post by tome »

jasode wrote: post #53

>Do you remember the insights that were crucial in learning to ride a bike or drive? The author mentioned bicycles and inadvertently missed an opportunity to show another "unknown reality" that beautifully illustrates his point. Consider typical adults (not physicists) with 20+ years of bicycle riding. If you ask them, "how does a bicycle turn?" , they'd respond that "you just lean into the direction of the turn and…

Have you actually tried turning a bicycle without countersteering? I have, the last time the topic was discussed on HN. I found I was able to turn without any perceptible countersteer. It's technically possible that I do have to countersteer for a small number of miliseconds over a small number of milimeters, but my experience leads me to doubt it.
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