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Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

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

#111

Post by pmichaud »

nicoburns wrote: post #68
pmichaud wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it sort of depends on what you count as different, but I think you're basically right. Power tools alone have made a big difference. Still, I think stairs are conceptually almost identical, including in the internal details, in a way that software really isn't. Maybe the rise/run is a slight different ratio or the stringer is an incidentally different material, or the saw has a battery instead of elbow grease…

Isn't programming all fundementally similar too? Ok, there are a few patterns you need to learn (functional, OOP, etc), and domain specific stuff. But that's also true of physical construction. Knowing how to build stairs is only going to get you so far if you want to build a wardrobe, and probably won't help much at all if you want to build a brick wall.

I agree with Kragen here. I see what you're saying, but from my perspective as a person who can build both software and stairs, they aren't in the same ballpark.

Sure a CPU is still executing instructions somewhere deep down the stack, but the semantics and concepts I am working with to make a control appear on the screen and then do something are wildly different over time in comparison to stairs.

Take a time traveling web programmer from 1995 and ask him to look at some modern web app code. He'll be completely lost for quite a while. Take a time traveling carpenter from 1900 and have him look at some residential stairs built in 2019. His comments might include "why is this lumber so thin?" and he'd probably have opinions on the newer materials (mostly positive, not always) but he would be not at all confused.

I think it would be fair to argue that a modern web app (big, complex system) is not comparable to stairs (simple, subpart of a system), but I think you can extend the analogy a lot. If that 1900s carpenter saw a modern commercial construction project he'd be a little more out of his element, but only because the materials we use are different and it would include stuff like HVAC. Fundamentally though he could easily see "oh, that span is longer than I would have made because they have stronger materials than I had." I can't think of any particularly confusing aspect of modern construction because the physics never change.

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

#112

Post by pier25 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #73
pier25 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much detail in relation what? Our current computers in 2020? What if the humans that made the simulation are from the year 3020 or 10020?

What do you think the level of detail of the simulation is? If it's simulating down to the atomic or subatomic level, then the only way to simulate that is with a universe at least as big, having turned the whole universe into a computer.

Maybe it's a lazy simulation... the atoms and subatomic particles are only simulated once someone is looking at it.

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

#114

Post by boatzart »

I dove headfirst into rebuilding an engine recently with basically zero practical experience. The amount of possible detail in the project is mind boggling. What's even more amazing though is that I'm able to just keep on chugging through the problems as they come up. I occasionally have bouts of vertigo as I stare into some abyss of minutiae, but then I just shrug my shoulders, wrench on some more bolts and keep going.

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

#115

Post by mistermann »

otabdeveloper2 wrote: post #109
mistermann wrote: post #16

I was hoping this article was going to pivot into mindfulness/psychology or something more abstract like that. > Another way to see that noticing the right details is hard, is that different people end up noticing different details . My brother and I once built a set of stairs for the garage with my dad, and we ran into the problem of determining where to cut the long boards so they lie at the correct angle. After st…

'Interpersonal communication' is not a skill. It is a weasel word for when you don't want to say 'social status' for whatever reason.

This doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. Of course, I don't understand what you mean, but I think there's tremendous unrealized value in arguing over seemingly minor thins such as this, so if you're willing to elaborate, I'm more than willing to consider your ideas.

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

#116

Post by mgoetzke »

feanaro wrote: post #10
combatentropy wrote: post #8

This is why I think people should still learn their job through hands-on apprenticeship, as opposed to a lot of book-learning in the classroom. In fact I think people do still learn their jobs that way. It's just delayed by several years of book-learning that has little return on investment. When you finally land your job, your first few months are when you really start learning enough to become useful. Disclaimer: I…

> Nothing I read in a book sticks until I have tried my hand at it for a few weeks. I don't think this is universal, though. Book reading is very natural for me and sticks immediately. In fact, I often find that things I've read today and not understood become magically clear a few days later.

It is highly dependent on the person (and book) indeed. I always preferred book reading and learning like that. Carefully thinking it through and then working on it. Worked well so far.

But over time (especially reading material from my kids classes) I see a lot of tiny mistakes, left out information, or imprecise statements which make me wonder whether I just did not see that before or quality of school books etc did degrade.

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

#117

Post by feanaro »

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #44
feanaro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing I read in a book sticks until I have tried my hand at it for a few weeks. I don't think this is universal, though. Book reading is very natural for me and sticks immediately. In fact, I often find that things I've read today and not understood become magically clear a few days later.

Doesn't that mean it doesn't stick immediately? I've always assumed that's because you're sort of mulling it over in the back of your head.

If I understood it the first time, it usually sticks very well. I'm refraining from saying completely and always because it's obviously not an absolute.

What I meant with that last sentence was that even for material I did not understand well (because it seemed to go over my head), I usually still finish reading the material, trying to absorb a very handwavey gist or general structure of the idea, avoiding the need for closure and leaving large chunks unclear. Then, after several days, I often find that I now almost magically understand it because it just clicked without me even being aware of it.

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

#118

Post by feanaro »

grawprog wrote: post #40
feanaro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing I read in a book sticks until I have tried my hand at it for a few weeks. I don't think this is universal, though. Book reading is very natural for me and sticks immediately. In fact, I often find that things I've read today and not understood become magically clear a few days later.

I've found I need both myself. I learn best when I read something and then shortly after get practical practice using what I just read. I find i'll forget little details of what I read if I don't use it right away, but they'll stick if I do something with it right away.

I agree, I've come to appreciate the practical aspects too and feel like I'm now using them synergistically. I'd still say theoretical reading is my primary learning mode.

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

#119

Post by pontifier »

I've often thought that truly ambitious projects need a certain amount of ignorance to succeed. People who can see all this detail tend to be more conservative with their plans because those details give them pause, and limit the scale of what they attempt.

The optimistic newcomer will bite off much more than they can chew, but sometimes they succeed.

"If I knew how much work this would be, I never would have started" is sometimes felt at the end of successful projects.

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

#120

Post by JacksonGariety »

dc443 wrote: post #87
JacksonGariety wrote: post #65

When I first read the title, I understood it more philosophically. As in––why is most of outer space just endless, indistinguishable dust, while here on Earth there's just so much _stuff_! There's nothing simple about reality at all. It's boundlessly complex and intricate for apparently no reason at all. It seems intuitively simpler that less "stuff" should exist. Another way of putting it: even if a supreme being di…

I find the refrigerator and McDonald's bathroom stall both to be a fairly straightforward metaphysical deduction from the generation of life on this planet and its consequent blossoming of civilization. Both of those things are byproducts that support the functional needs of humans which are the ultimate result of evolutionary dynamics in carbon based life forms found on the planet. These things which are crazy compl…

The nuclear reactor is a very good example of the bizarre contrast between human achievements and the natural world from which we evolved. Thank you :)

I see your point about the inevitability of humanity's technical achievements. But I can draw attention to my point further by suggesting the following hypothesis: it seems intuitive that something very complex cannot be derived from something very simple. Nonetheless, the smooth, dense simplicity of the big bang has, through a process that is empirically observable, unfolded into this incredibly complex microcosm on Earth. That there is a scientific explanation is not really debatable: we know that the complexity of the tree is stored in the seed as genes. The simplicity is only apparent. So, if we wish to explain the development of the universe as we have explained the development of trees, animals, etc. then we will have to be able to identify some kind of code that contains the potential for infinity complexity; a code that was housed in the smooth, dense big bang and thereafter dictated the procedural unfolding of reality from gas to stars and eventually nuclear reactors. All of this is to say that our intuitive idea that complexity cannot be derived from simplicity is actually, in a weird way, contradicted by biology, and that this "weirdness" applies not just to biological phenomena but physical ones as well so that new things seem to arise out of nowhere, when in fact they were stored in an imperceptible, condensed form that unfolded itself out of itself.

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