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Feynman’s Razor

defenderofthebasic.substack.com

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Re: Feynman’s Razor

#71

Post by tredigi »

sublinear wrote: post #31

To be great is to be misunderstood, and Feynman was a great man. I'm still not sure who decided to abuse some quotes and invent this "razor". I don't believe Feynman ever meant to overconstrain and corrupt information based on (likely incorrect) assumptions about his audience. There's no need to "dumb down" anything ever, not even for children. The information is either there or it isn't regardless of who can compreh…

> There's no need to "dumb down" anything ever, not even for children.

This is so wrong that I can't imagine you actually meant it in the way that it quite obviously reads like.

When my 3-year old just saw is favorite toy fall from the sofa because he put it in an .. unstable position, then obviously it won't help if I explain the theory of relativity to him, cause ultimately it was gravity causing the mess. It won't help either to "dumb it down" by only explaining Newton's mechanics. What he actually needs to understand is that things fall down. Why exactly can be explained later. Much later. When he goes to university perhaps, if he chooses to and still wants to know.

Re: Feynman’s Razor

#73

Post by zarzavat »

klabb3 wrote: post #38
hifrote wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you not like about Feynman's "little arrows" / rotating clock hands in the QED book? It’s difficult to articulate, but two aspects are: The amount of times I have only confused people more by trying to explain even modular arithmetic by calling on the clock analogy. And the fact that the little “clock hands” are a complete abstraction from both the physics being described and the mathematical models that de…

> As I noted in the gp I think code implementations or numerical methods should be the goal. I’m 100% with Feynman on this one. I loved the book because of the intuition it gave me about quantum physics. He even has this amazing analogy for how to teach arithmetic without numbers. Now, you could absolutely claim that he fails in his analogies (I’m not among the .1% of people if not less who can debate that), but I ca…

In mathematics, geometric and algebraic explanations are complementary.

If you plot a function, you can observe many properties easily, for instance where does it cross the axes? Is it symmetrical? How quickly does it grow?

However there are also many properties that are easier to observe algebraically. For example if you plot x^n you can see if n is odd or even, but you can’t see what value n has because x^10 looks very much like x^12. But if you have the algebraic representation you can read it off.

The issue with Feynman’s clocks is that he only provides the geometric explanation (what physicists would call “intuition”), and not the algebraic explanation.

This only helps two kinds of people: 1) people not capable of understanding the algebra, 2) people who already know the algebra and want to develop intuition.

For the third group of 3) people are capable of understanding the algebra but haven’t learned it yet, only talking about clocks is a bit dizzying.

Re: Feynman’s Razor

#74

Post by nicbou »

I struggle a lot with this in my work. I can’t assume that my readers are fluent English speakers, nor that they understand the topic. I can’t even assume that they care to understand. I have adopted a plain and unambiguous writing style that hopefully accounts for it. I am now experimenting with formatting that allows them to skim everything and still get the gist of it. In my opinion, nhs.uk is the best example to learn from.

People are not stupid, but they are busy, tired, lazy, or simply not that interested in the finer details. There is a balance between respecting their intellect and respecting their time.

Re: Feynman’s Razor

#75

Post by user_7832 »

tredigi wrote: post #69
sneak wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a good point to beat my drum: put your email address in your HN profile, people! A website link also wouldn’t hurt. Otherwise if someone wants to follow up with you about a comment, there is no way to do so without spamming a public comment reply. Contact info!

That won't work because many people here post anonymously. They have a throwaway account and make a new one now and then to leave no trace to their real identity. Leaving an email address would mean having to maintain a throwaway email in sync with the HN account. Nowadays that's even harder to do since HN shadowbans new accounts for a while. You write a comment and you are surprised that nobody replies. It's because…

> Leaving an email address would mean having to maintain a throwaway email in sync with the HN account.

Apple's hide my email or DDG's email services are good for that imo.

> I'm also using a rather new account, let's see if this msg actually is visible now.

Take a guess ;)

Re: Feynman’s Razor

#76

Post by bruce343434 »

exe34 wrote: post #67
barfbagginus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collaborators always have their excuses, and yet freedom fighters always seem to ignore those very excuses. What makes the difference in outlook?

freedom fighters take calculated risks, they believe there's a prize that they can win. collaborators think that they are helping minimise harm and using the leverage/finance to help a lot more people than they could otherwise help/contribute to. nobody ever woke up and said, today I will do evil things. Man does not err willingly.

That's what you think; I think plenty of people have shown that they wake up and prioritise themselves and only themselves. They don't think in terms of good or evil. They think "will this benefit me? Will this make me more money? Give me more status? More power?"

Re: Feynman’s Razor

#77

Post by kohbo »

nicbou wrote: post #74

I struggle a lot with this in my work. I can’t assume that my readers are fluent English speakers, nor that they understand the topic. I can’t even assume that they care to understand. I have adopted a plain and unambiguous writing style that hopefully accounts for it. I am now experimenting with formatting that allows them to skim everything and still get the gist of it. In my opinion, nhs.uk is the best example to…

How come you're avoiding every contraction, except "can't"?

Re: Feynman’s Razor

#78

Post by exe34 »

bruce343434 wrote: post #76
exe34 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

freedom fighters take calculated risks, they believe there's a prize that they can win. collaborators think that they are helping minimise harm and using the leverage/finance to help a lot more people than they could otherwise help/contribute to. nobody ever woke up and said, today I will do evil things. Man does not err willingly.

That's what you think; I think plenty of people have shown that they wake up and prioritise themselves and only themselves. They don't think in terms of good or evil. They think "will this benefit me? Will this make me more money? Give me more status? More power?"

have they told you this, or are you saying you are able to hear their private thoughts?

Re: Feynman’s Razor

#80

Post by faku312 »

barfbagginus wrote: post #65
scrubs wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bring that up? We all know it's BS, and the people who do it are expletive deleted morons. We're interested in what the smart people do .. and even better smart with a touch of class. The older I get the less and less patience I have with people pushing the "it's all politics", "everybody lies and manages up/down and if you don't you're a fool", or it's all about image. While there's smallish elements of truth to…

The corruption is systematic and automated, so the struggle and response must be systematic and automated as well as forceful. Not knee jerk. But more organized than simple individuals doing the right thing. And much more forceful. It must become very dangerous to be an exploiter of the human condition. Must become very dangerous for capitalists, executives, marketers, and so on. Force and systematization/automation…

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