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"a lot of the abstractions we use hide and gloss over a chaotic system whose particulars can explain a lot of unexplained or misunderstood processes." Is not t
by RobertoG 10y ago
"a lot of the abstractions we use hide and gloss over a chaotic system whose particulars can explain a lot of unexplained or misunderstood processes."
Is not that always the case with abstractions? In fact, is not their point?
The article says:
"How far is human science from understanding a human brain? [..] Assuming that each neuron contains 175 trillion atoms, the total brain contains roughly 2 * 10^25 atoms."
Well, by the same logic, we could argue that we don't understand cars.
- amatic 10y ago>Well, by the same logic, we could argue that we don't understand cars Or, by similar logic, that we don't understand how the planets of the solar system interact. It seems that in the history of science, initial views of complex things as chaotic got gradually replaced with better abstractions. As in, the word 'planet' means 'wanderer', then there were epicycles, perfect circles, elipses... I'm not a biologist, but maybe the current abstractions and models of cells are waiting for their Newtons and Mendeleevs to figure out the right models.
- adrianN 10y agoThe epicycle theory was actually pretty good and explained planet motion to the precision that measurements of that time provided.