5 ms·

It seems that in his view, simplicity and "usefulness" are correlated, and that's what is important. In fact, he says the "simpler an explanation, the more use

It seems that in his view, simplicity and "usefulness" are correlated, and that's what is important. In fact, he says the "simpler an explanation, the more useful it is". The mechanics of an omnipotent being are infinitely more complex than evolution, so I'm not sure that it would qualify as a "useful" explanation, at least according to his perspective.

pressanykey 9y ago
How comes you both assume the author is male? She is called Sabine Hossenfelder.
- motardo 9y ago
  The gender of the name "Sabine" is not obvious to me. I wish English had a good gender neutral pronoun. "He or she" is too formal sounding. "They/their/them" is too informal sounding.
  - jdmichal 9y ago
    I wonder why you feel that singular they is informal? There's nothing wrong with the construction. It's attested as far back as 14th century. And, as you mention, it certainly fills a void in the language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
- coldtea 9y ago
  How come you assume a person named Sabine must 100% be a woman? And how come you assume that even if said person indeed has the XX chromosomes (to be nominally classified as a "woman"), that they also self-identify as a woman and prefer the adjective "she" over "he" or some other? See how far this rabbit hole goes? It's easy why they assumed the author is male: they don't care who the author is, and didn't read their name on the blog. I read the first 6-7 paragraphs of the post and didn't bother to read the name either. And even if I had, "Sabine" as a name doesn't tell me anything about the gender (not a name we have in my country, nor a very well know one, like Mary or Helen or something that everybody would guess). Heck, there are Spanish men called "Maria". Had I made a comment I might have used either "they" or assumed it's a man, mostly because statically for things posted at HN, it would be true.
  - thaumaturgy 9y ago
    I dunno about the rest of you, but I clicked on the link to her Twitter account, which so far has much higher quality stuff than this thread on HN. Some fun links: "Lightning makes new isotopes" http://www.nature.com/news/lightning-makes-new-isotopes-1.23033 http://www.nature.com/news/lightning-makes-new-isotopes-1.23... "P-values--abused but not abandoned" (includes some nice background on p-values for those of us for whom the concept is a little fuzzy) http://sciencenordic.com/p-values-abused-not-abandoned http://sciencenordic.com/p-values-abused-not-abandoned A cute video of Feynman answering the question of whether you're seeing an object, or only the light from an object, when looking at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8aWBcPVPMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8aWBcPVPMo A single-molecule magnet: https://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.217202 https://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119... ...and all that's just in the last 24 hours. She's got a fantastic Twitter feed for the science-interested.
  - pressanykey 9y ago
    Sorry, I was not aware that Sabine is not obvious in english. The picture in the top right could also have been a hint. It is not about it being "100% woman" but about "male" being the default. I think it is telling that the assumption seems to be physics -> male. If this would have been about social issues or fashion, maybe the people would have checked before assuming male gender? I don't say it does not happen to me too, but if it happens, I think it is good to raise awareness.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >Sorry, I was not aware that Sabine is not obvious in english. The picture in the top right could also have been a hint. Hmm, I managed to miss the picture too! >It is not about it being "100% woman" but about "male" being the default Is it the default because of bias though, or just because it's just more common -- and people tend to assume based on frequency?
- tizzdogg 9y ago
  Note also the picture of her at the top of the page.
- joesb 9y ago
  Because I don't care enough to pay attention.
aetherspawn 9y ago
A human builds a house. Compared to the house, the human is omnipotent; it goes where it pleases and is free to create and destroy houses at will. Yet, Occam’s Razor does not agree that, after the human has left, the house was never engineered. As humans, are we so ignorant to think that we are the apex of intelligence? That we could never be like the house, ignorant of how insignificant we are?
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  Additionally I allocate a piece of memory and don't bother to release it, my program runs fine when I execute from the terminal, therefore I can regularly call my program as a subroutine and face no issues.
  - aetherspawn 9y ago
    I understand your analogy, but I'd like to understand the point behind your analogy. Would you be able to extend your analogy with a brief explanation? Or is it /s to the point that I perhaps failed to explicitly explain the relevance of my comment to the parent comment? If so, I apologize. The parent comment said "The mechanics of an omnipotent being are infinitely more complex than evolution" and the point of the house analogy was to argue that it's based on viewpoint. The house may think that the mechanics of the human are infinitely more complex (i.e. the wiring of the house barely compares to a handful of neurons from the human), but from the perspective of the human there is nothing complex about the interaction. For the house to be self-bootstrapping from just soup would be curious and highly unlikely from their POV. As a human our reasoning ability is influenced by our viewpoint (and that's not to say any one viewpoint is right or wrong), so we should always play devils advocate with the razor.

pressanykey 9y ago

How comes you both assume the author is male? She is called Sabine Hossenfelder.

motardo 9y ago
The gender of the name "Sabine" is not obvious to me. I wish English had a good gender neutral pronoun. "He or she" is too formal sounding. "They/their/them" is too informal sounding.
- jdmichal 9y ago
  I wonder why you feel that singular they is informal? There's nothing wrong with the construction. It's attested as far back as 14th century. And, as you mention, it certainly fills a void in the language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
coldtea 9y ago
How come you assume a person named Sabine must 100% be a woman? And how come you assume that even if said person indeed has the XX chromosomes (to be nominally classified as a "woman"), that they also self-identify as a woman and prefer the adjective "she" over "he" or some other? See how far this rabbit hole goes? It's easy why they assumed the author is male: they don't care who the author is, and didn't read their name on the blog. I read the first 6-7 paragraphs of the post and didn't bother to read the name either. And even if I had, "Sabine" as a name doesn't tell me anything about the gender (not a name we have in my country, nor a very well know one, like Mary or Helen or something that everybody would guess). Heck, there are Spanish men called "Maria". Had I made a comment I might have used either "they" or assumed it's a man, mostly because statically for things posted at HN, it would be true.
- thaumaturgy 9y ago
  I dunno about the rest of you, but I clicked on the link to her Twitter account, which so far has much higher quality stuff than this thread on HN. Some fun links: "Lightning makes new isotopes" http://www.nature.com/news/lightning-makes-new-isotopes-1.23033 http://www.nature.com/news/lightning-makes-new-isotopes-1.23... "P-values--abused but not abandoned" (includes some nice background on p-values for those of us for whom the concept is a little fuzzy) http://sciencenordic.com/p-values-abused-not-abandoned http://sciencenordic.com/p-values-abused-not-abandoned A cute video of Feynman answering the question of whether you're seeing an object, or only the light from an object, when looking at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8aWBcPVPMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8aWBcPVPMo A single-molecule magnet: https://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.217202 https://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119... ...and all that's just in the last 24 hours. She's got a fantastic Twitter feed for the science-interested.
- pressanykey 9y ago
  Sorry, I was not aware that Sabine is not obvious in english. The picture in the top right could also have been a hint. It is not about it being "100% woman" but about "male" being the default. I think it is telling that the assumption seems to be physics -> male. If this would have been about social issues or fashion, maybe the people would have checked before assuming male gender? I don't say it does not happen to me too, but if it happens, I think it is good to raise awareness.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >Sorry, I was not aware that Sabine is not obvious in english. The picture in the top right could also have been a hint. Hmm, I managed to miss the picture too! >It is not about it being "100% woman" but about "male" being the default Is it the default because of bias though, or just because it's just more common -- and people tend to assume based on frequency?
tizzdogg 9y ago
Note also the picture of her at the top of the page.
joesb 9y ago
Because I don't care enough to pay attention.

aetherspawn 9y ago

A human builds a house. Compared to the house, the human is omnipotent; it goes where it pleases and is free to create and destroy houses at will. Yet, Occam’s Razor does not agree that, after the human has left, the house was never engineered. As humans, are we so ignorant to think that we are the apex of intelligence? That we could never be like the house, ignorant of how insignificant we are?

SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
Additionally I allocate a piece of memory and don't bother to release it, my program runs fine when I execute from the terminal, therefore I can regularly call my program as a subroutine and face no issues.
- aetherspawn 9y ago
  I understand your analogy, but I'd like to understand the point behind your analogy. Would you be able to extend your analogy with a brief explanation? Or is it /s to the point that I perhaps failed to explicitly explain the relevance of my comment to the parent comment? If so, I apologize. The parent comment said "The mechanics of an omnipotent being are infinitely more complex than evolution" and the point of the house analogy was to argue that it's based on viewpoint. The house may think that the mechanics of the human are infinitely more complex (i.e. the wiring of the house barely compares to a handful of neurons from the human), but from the perspective of the human there is nothing complex about the interaction. For the house to be self-bootstrapping from just soup would be curious and highly unlikely from their POV. As a human our reasoning ability is influenced by our viewpoint (and that's not to say any one viewpoint is right or wrong), so we should always play devils advocate with the razor.