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People always do things like this, like an astrologer trying to say something profound using Heisenberg's uncertainty principle applying it to your romantic rel

People always do things like this, like an astrologer trying to say something profound using Heisenberg's uncertainty principle applying it to your romantic relationships, or whatever. These "just so" stories are attractive but it is quite important to realize a metaphor which is intuitive and you perceive as useful is nothing at all like the process for finding real scientific truth. There is also a lot of introspective value to modeling the world as being controlled by mysterious gods who are pleased or appalled at your behavior and that's why good and bad things happen. Perhaps useful for some people but nothing at all like truth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story

tobyjsullivan 4y ago
This is definitely what I was thinking about when I started my comment. I torpedoed my own point with the comment about the model being "too useful". Your explanation is much better. When I said "I can't stop," I was referring more to this tendency to borrow models to explain unrelated systems. It's just a thing my brain wants to do and I can't help it (and again, I seem to convince myself that it's somehow accurate or useful even if, rationally, I'm quite sure it's not).
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Yup, unrelated things do indeed often look and behave in similar ways. Humans are just a little bit overdriven to find patterns and end up finding some that don’t exist. It’s a useful trait for finding difficult patterns and there’s probably a stable point to maximize benefits which lands on finding a few too many.
JJMcJ 4y ago
Or how the Matrix movies came out and suddenly "Are we living in a simulation?" became an immensely important philosophical question.
- goatlover 4y ago
  It isn't really that much different than, "Are we living in a dream?", of the movie Inception that's been asked since antiquity. Is the world some sort of illusion? How would we know?

tobyjsullivan 4y ago

This is definitely what I was thinking about when I started my comment. I torpedoed my own point with the comment about the model being "too useful". Your explanation is much better. When I said "I can't stop," I was referring more to this tendency to borrow models to explain unrelated systems. It's just a thing my brain wants to do and I can't help it (and again, I seem to convince myself that it's somehow accurate or useful even if, rationally, I'm quite sure it's not).

colechristensen 4y ago
Yup, unrelated things do indeed often look and behave in similar ways. Humans are just a little bit overdriven to find patterns and end up finding some that don’t exist. It’s a useful trait for finding difficult patterns and there’s probably a stable point to maximize benefits which lands on finding a few too many.

JJMcJ 4y ago

Or how the Matrix movies came out and suddenly "Are we living in a simulation?" became an immensely important philosophical question.

goatlover 4y ago
It isn't really that much different than, "Are we living in a dream?", of the movie Inception that's been asked since antiquity. Is the world some sort of illusion? How would we know?