13 ms·

The truth is always made of details

204 points by herbertl 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
skybrian 3y ago
The examples in the article are of things we could look at more closely, if only we cared to look. Often, it's not so easy. All we have to go on are sketchy news reports. You won't get the details from reading a news article online.
- eszed 3y ago
  Indeed. It's good to keep that in mind when we're encouraged to draw firm conclusions - or, worse, provoked into strong emotions - based on broad abstractions. Of course, we often do need to form opinions, but it follows that we should appropriately discount our conclusions, and appropriately weight those of people who have more-detailed experience.
patcon 3y ago
I love this, but I also feel they're valorizing the high resolution simply because it's their particular interest. In some fields, what they are speaking about is called "fine-graining". Looking up at the bigger picture is called "coarse-graining". Moving up and down between the levels, and bringing learnings between levels, that's where the work is. No one place of focus is better, as each environment can always change. Attention exists to hopefully guide us to the right level. I'd say we're not "built for high-res", because it's the moving between that keeps our attention from getting stuck at one specific level of abstraction :) There's a great quote by supreme court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that feel related to the crux of this stuff: > For the simplicity that lies this side of complexity, I would not give a fig, but for the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity, I would give my life. The "simplicity on the other side of complexity" is the coarse-grained explanation, the abstraction, that has done the complex consideration to collapse the appropriate aspects. We only need to fine-grain our attention to understand that appropriate reduction for the given situation we're trying to grok. But the low-res is no less noble than the high-res, so long as you or someone else has done the hard work of finding the right abstraction... :)
- starfallg 3y ago
  I don't think the article is valorising the detail view at all, only to highlight the lack of appreciation and neglect of the ability to move down the layers as opposed to moving up. Higher level abstractions tend to be not grounded. When we operate on abstractions, we also tend to move up and lose the capability to execute on the lower layers. It results in a lot of inefficiencies and presents new failure scenarios.
  - patcon 3y ago
    It sounds like we perhaps agree on most of the important things. I'm with you on new failures at each level of focus. Again, moving between feels the value. Any specific level will have failures, and only spreading attention across all levels can helps us hit a minimum -- probably never zero, because then we'd be gods in the territory :)
- verisimi 3y ago
  The map is not the terrain. Any map, coarse grained or fine grained has its place, they maybe be useful. But neither are actually the terrain. Even software models aren't the real thing.
  - coxmi 3y ago
    This is a great hacker news meme, but a map is still obviously useful. To analyse the map, its author and its purpose, is just as useful as getting into the weeds and understanding the terrain. What use would knowing the terrain be if you can’t share your mental model of it with someone else?
    - kybernetikos 3y ago
      I'd go further. If you think you understand the terrain in itself, all you've really done is make a more detailed map. You can ask the terrain questions, but you can never understand it or predict it or do anything useful with it except by making a map. "The map is not the terrain" is useful if you're in danger of throwing away evidence that challenges your favourite model, in all other cases it distracts attention from the fact that building models is essential and important.
corethree 3y ago
>The world exists in infinite resolution, and that’s what we’re built for. The truth is made of details, and they go all the way down. Any ideas about it just rest on the top. This isn't known. The greatest depth of resolution we know about is the elementary particles. Quarks, Leptons and Bosons. The smallest meaningful length is the 1.6×10^−35 and it's known as the planck length. We don't know what's smaller than that length. This length places a hard limit on our very notion of abstraction. You think your memories and imagination are ethereal abstractions that have no meaningful size or resolution? False. Your memory and even thought takes up physical space in your head and whatever that physical space is it can be no smaller than the planck length. This limit puts a full stop on even the most ethereal abstraction you can think of. Everything and I mean everything... even that feeling you get when you remember the sound or smell from some place in your childhood, that feeling itself takes up physical space and has a limited resolution. I get what he's talking about and I know I'm being pedantic. But the fact that he just stated something that's axiomatically wrong shows that his ideas here are not likely to be fully correct and he's not thinking deep enough. Our existence is owed to the macro viewpoint. I am not simply a collection of atoms and particles. The arrangement of those particles is what makes me human. The macro view with less details is what gives me, and you meaning. From a quantitative perspective this viewpoint is measurable as entropy. The truth is often hidden by the details it is not hidden in the details.
- cwillu 3y ago
  “If you could look even closer (and you can with a microscope) the detail would continue to unfold essentially forever, or at least until you reach the molecular scale”
  - corethree 3y ago
    This is also wrong. We have ways to deduce resolution smaller than the molecular scale.
    - shmeeed 3y ago
      Your Planck-length-attention to detail seems to have failed to parse the "at least" part of the sentence, which by formal logic makes it correct again, doesn't it? By the way you're saying yourself that this scale has to be deduced and isn't observable anymore. I suppose it could be argued that the essay is rather about what we as human individuals could observe by more or less direct means, and about what normal people could comprehend if they wanted to. It's not a stretch to say that musings about the quantum realm are beyond the scope of most. You're not wrong, of course the author could have chosen to extend his argument deeper into the fine structure of matter itself. But he didn't, and I think he gets the point across just as well, so the discussion seems a bit silly.
Joel_Mckay 3y ago
The article premise is false, and content is 56% well structured LLM nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant Some people do have trouble distinguishing sycophantic idealism... from evidenced observation. The "Baloney Detection Kit" may help, or just make yourself angrier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ Ok look, a sale on jellybeans... the day is getting even better. =)
- nerdponx 3y ago
  False how? It's just one person's observations and opinions.
  - Joel_Mckay 3y ago
    Evidenced observation differs in that the phenomena holds constant for everyone, and the reasoning behind that model constantly improves. The poem alludes to the concurrent perspectives that may all be considered "Truth". Yet skillfully pokes fun at our tendency to seek simple explanations about incomprehensible subjects. i.e. the idea of perfectionism itself is a false concept, and often can never be 100% certain of anything. Even in the field of Mathematics there are provably unsolvable problems, and that will unlikely ever change. In summary: 1. It is easier to prove something logically false 2. It is difficult to prove an ephemeral truth will hold 3. A false sense of accomplishment drives people to behave in aberrant irrational manners Have a wonderful day, and remember to tip your robot on the way out =)
kubb 3y ago
Talking about "the truth" is tricky because everyone sees things differently, words can't always capture reality perfectly, and what we think is true can change over time. Plus, the idea of truth itself is really complicated.
throwaway290 3y ago
Truth is not defined. First author equates truth with details of reality, which is doubtful already. Then jumps to examples like > Is drug prohibition justifiable? Was Napoleon an admirable figure? Question of opinion can't be answered with truth. Or if you want any answer to it is truth, because it is truly your opinion. It's a lazy take with a poorly chosen analogy at the root.
- mmcdermott 3y ago
  Both of those questions are fundamentally questions of morality. This means that there is, or at least can be, an objective answer to the question provided sufficient parameters are specified, not least of which is the system of morality being used. The distinction matters. I may not enjoy a book purely as a matter of taste. I think most of us have had the experience of reading or watching something that we would have agreed was well-crafted while also not remotely enjoying the experience. There is a good deal of pure subjectivity here. I cannot be argued into enjoying something. However it is possible to either change one's system of values or else to be shown that one's evaluation of a subject in the light of those values is missing something.
crabmusket 3y ago
The image captions are a fun touch.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  «[The leaf] has rounded serrations along its edges» - uses a picture of a leaf not showing the edge :(
ryanjshaw 3y ago
This seems to be an article written for neurotypical people and I envy them somewhat in this respect. I live my life in the detail and while it has benefits for my career, it has been a source of exhaustion and frustration when communicating with people who don't live in the details i.e. the majority. It seems much easier to live at the high level and choose to drill down into the details than to live in the details and remind yourself to step back, but I could be wrong. For example: I edited this brief comment 8 times.
- movpasd 3y ago
  As a non-neurotypical person myself, I sympathize with your feelings on the article, and felt them myself when reading it. But I also found it to be quite empowering. The truth is, whatever your field of work or interest is, the detail _is_ beautiful, and not everyone gets to experience it. Don't get me wrong, there's a spectrum (no pun intended) and feeling constantly lost in a sea of details can be really disabling, especially in a social order that demands quick judgements, conformity, and adaptibility to constant change. (No "but" at the end of this paragraph, it just sucks.)
- mdgrech23 3y ago
  I feel like we live in a world w/ to many "high level people". At least in the world of software development. We need more people in the weeds. 20 Different high level ideas from high level stakeholders benefits no one. It's also way easier and maybe even more fun to be a "high level" abstract thinking. The devil and quite frankly the work is in the nuts and bolts but others want to to dismiss that as "sausage making".
- butlike 3y ago
  Sometimes being constantly absorbed in the details makes you miss the forest for the trees. High-level people have to think in broad stokes cause the details can be overwhelming. It's important to interface with the opposite type of person from time to time to get the whole picture.
- strken 3y ago
  That's surprising to me. I can't imagine what it would even mean to live your life at the lower abstraction levels, since those are things like molecules, cells, and muscle fibres. I'm tempted to interpret your reply as saying you operate on a more detailed level than the average person, rather than the most detailed, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.
bibelo 3y ago
And that my friends, is why Virtual Reality will never ever be real, or even look real. I know it's truism, but the sheer realization of that makes me empty and desperate (jk). Just trying to simulate realism would mean you take an object in your hand in VR, and are able to examine it closely, seeing scratches or others details. Of course, these details must not be made using procedural generation. That would mean going back to square 1, a superficial world of shallow details. We want details that have a history. So imagine you're able to find a way to scan these details and reproduce them in VR. You'd have the same problem at a deeper level, say using a magnifier, only revealing the void of your digital life and nothing around has meaning. Say now you're able to scan details at deeper levels, even at an infinitely deep level. You'd have to store them, and that would probably mean using more storage that they are atoms in this world, so it would be impossible, or would it? Would it be possible to compress details, or vectorize them, so that they'd take less weight that their equivalent? Another problem would be details for objects that exist only in VR. Here again, these details would need to have a history. That scratch would be here or there and in that shape for a specific reason. That would require a deep understanding of physical laws, and being able to reproduce them at infinitely smaller levels. And store them here again. So I guess that makes the whole task impossible. I guess it'll never be possible to transfer your soul into VR, and even if it were, you'd become crazy realizing your world is limited, not by the geographical limits you're bound to, but by the depth of details you'd be able to explore.
- imadierich 3y ago
  [dead]
- immibis 3y ago
  Just don't put magnifiers in your VR game. Problem solved.
- persnickety 3y ago
  > We want details that have a history. For the VR to be real, sure. But for the VR to look good? I don't think so. People don't care about history when they care about looks. Case in point: pre-damaged jeans. Procedural generation is also not failing when it's lacking details, but when the large scale stuff looks off. Take a basic example of grass patterns in games: if they are made non-repeating, then at the level of detail the game is about, they have all the realism you could ask for.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bambax 3y ago
All true, but quite banal? All those blog posts that sell themselves as profound philosophical insights while pushing truisms like pearls on a string are, well, disappointing. This is hollow.
- AndrewDucker 3y ago
  Things which are obviously true to someone who has encountered them many times before (or so long ago that they have forgotten how it felt not to know them) are shining pearls of wisdom to the person who has never come across them before.
  - bambax 3y ago
    Maybe, but... where do we start? Also, interestingly, TFA clearly states that children start out seeking details, and it's only adults who fail to see the trees for the forest, so to speak. If this is correct, everyone has "encountered this many times before"...
belugacat 3y ago
The premise reminds me of this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29429385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29429385
lqet 3y ago
This article strongly reminded me of "Reality has surprising amount of detail", an old HN favorite: http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-... E: which was also noted by the top comment under the article
gumby 3y ago
As famously noted by Horton, though I prefer Blake: Auguries of Innocence BY WILLIAM BLAKE To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons Shudders Hell thr' all its regions A dog starvd at his Masters Gate Predicts the ruin of the State A Horse misusd upon the Road Calls to Heaven for Human blood Each outcry of the hunted Hare A fibre from the Brain does tear A Skylark wounded in the wing A Cherubim does cease to sing The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight Does the Rising Sun affright Every Wolfs & Lions howl Raises from Hell a Human Soul The wild deer, wandring here & there Keeps the Human Soul from Care The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife And yet forgives the Butchers knife The Bat that flits at close of Eve Has left the Brain that wont Believe The Owl that calls upon the Night Speaks the Unbelievers fright He who shall hurt the little Wren Shall never be belovd by Men He who the Ox to wrath has movd Shall never be by Woman lovd The wanton Boy that kills the Fly Shall feel the Spiders enmity He who torments the Chafers Sprite Weaves a Bower in endless Night The Catterpiller on the Leaf Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly For the Last Judgment draweth nigh He who shall train the Horse to War Shall never pass the Polar Bar The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat Feed them & thou wilt grow fat The Gnat that sings his Summers Song Poison gets from Slanders tongue The poison of the Snake & Newt Is the sweat of Envys Foot The poison of the Honey Bee Is the Artists Jealousy The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags A Truth thats told with bad intent Beats all the Lies you can invent It is right it should be so Man was made for Joy & Woe And when this we rightly know Thro the World we safely go Joy & Woe are woven fine A Clothing for the soul divine Under every grief & pine Runs a joy with silken twine The Babe is more than swadling Bands Throughout all these Human Lands Tools were made & Born were hands Every Farmer Understands Every Tear from Every Eye Becomes a Babe in Eternity This is caught by Females bright And returnd to its own delight The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath Writes Revenge in realms of Death The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air Does to Rags the Heavens tear The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun Palsied strikes the Summers Sun The poor Mans Farthing is worth more Than all the Gold on Africs Shore One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands Or if protected from on high Does that whole Nation sell & buy He who mocks the Infants Faith Shall be mockd in Age & Death He who shall teach the Child to Doubt The rotting Grave shall neer get out He who respects the Infants faith Triumphs over Hell & Death The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons Are the Fruits of the Two seasons The Questioner who sits so sly Shall never know how to Reply He who replies to words of Doubt Doth put the Light of Knowledge out The Strongest Poison ever known Came from Caesars Laurel Crown Nought can Deform the Human Race Like to the Armours iron brace When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow A Riddle or the Crickets Cry Is to Doubt a fit Reply The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile Make Lame Philosophy to smile He who Doubts from what he sees Will neer Believe do what you Please If the Sun & Moon should Doubt Theyd immediately Go out To be in a Passion you Good may Do But no Good if a Passion is in you The Whore & Gambler by the State Licencd build that Nations Fate The Harlots cry from Street to Street Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet The Winners Shout the Losers Curse Dance before dead Englands Hearse Every Night & every Morn Some to Misery are Born Every Morn and every Night Some are Born to sweet delight Some are Born to sweet delight Some are Born to Endless Night We are led to Believe a Lie When we see not Thro the Eye Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light God Appears & God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in Night But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of day
Amorymeltzer 3y ago
>Unsurprisingly, amidst the incredible volume of information coming at us, there’s been a surge in low-res, ideologically-driven views: the world is like this, those people are like that, X is good, Y is bad, A causes B. Not complicated, bro. >The world exists in infinite resolution, and that’s what we’re built for. Except of course that's not how people or nature work. Call it an algorithm or heuristic or whatever you want, but e.g. "don't eat brightly colored animals" is wildly successful. The world does exist in "infinite resolution" but we are not built for it. That's the basic premise of The Good Place: life's too complicated for a person to look at the infinite resolution of everything; just doing the best one can and trying to do better is really all we can do. Don't over-generalize about people, but these shorthands are how we get through an infinitely complicated day. Also, as a kid playing some version of what we called murder[1], a good rule of thumb was the murderer was the one who gave too much detail. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wink_murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wink_murder
photochemsyn 3y ago
Nice read, interesting discussion. I'd add that switching one's perspective from one viewing angle to another, regardless of the resolution, often provides invaluable information. A classic example is looking at two different shadows - one is a square, the other is a circle. The same object (a cylinder) can cast these two shadows. In the realm of ideas, such as the examples given on drug prohibition and Napoleon, this translates into generating arguments for and against the idea. Indeed, when querying LLMs on subjects, one of the more useful techniques is to ask for the pro/con arguments, essentially getting the LLM to argue with itself.
eszed 3y ago
Apropos the first examples given in TFA, I have a friend who worked at Oxford Scientific Films, back in the '70s and' 80s. When Jim Henson wanted to make a Serious Movie, with puppets, he hired OSF (or artists from - I don't know the exact business arrangement) to build the sets. They had experience with natural materials, which Henson wanted precisely because of their fractal detail. My friend has a credit somewhere towards the end of the reel on Dark Crystal, which I thought was cooler than he did when he told me.
jimkri 3y ago
I really liked this. It reminds me of Michael Pollan's book A Place of My Own The Architecture of Daydreams - https://michaelpollan.com/books/a-place-of-my-own/ https://michaelpollan.com/books/a-place-of-my-own/ Michael goes into great detail on building his own office space. It was really cool to read all the details. It also reminds me of a Tom Silva quote, "The money is in the details."
csours 3y ago
There's something related to this that I want to explore: Limits of rationality and human experience. Rationalists break things down with logical tools to a point where they can get an answer - they zoom in to specific problems. This is good and useful. The problem comes when we zoom back out again, and try to generify the specific solution. The specific solution works in a certain context, but we haven't proven that it works in other contexts. Then someone makes an authoritative statement about psychology or sociology or politics that makes sense in their context, but it ignores the human experience and history. Everybody is made of their own details.

204 points by herbertl 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

The examples in the article are of things we could look at more closely, if only we cared to look. Often, it's not so easy. All we have to go on are sketchy news reports. You won't get the details from reading a news article online.

eszed 3y ago
Indeed. It's good to keep that in mind when we're encouraged to draw firm conclusions - or, worse, provoked into strong emotions - based on broad abstractions. Of course, we often do need to form opinions, but it follows that we should appropriately discount our conclusions, and appropriately weight those of people who have more-detailed experience.

patcon 3y ago

I love this, but I also feel they're valorizing the high resolution simply because it's their particular interest. In some fields, what they are speaking about is called "fine-graining". Looking up at the bigger picture is called "coarse-graining". Moving up and down between the levels, and bringing learnings between levels, that's where the work is. No one place of focus is better, as each environment can always change. Attention exists to hopefully guide us to the right level. I'd say we're not "built for high-res", because it's the moving between that keeps our attention from getting stuck at one specific level of abstraction :) There's a great quote by supreme court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that feel related to the crux of this stuff: > For the simplicity that lies this side of complexity, I would not give a fig, but for the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity, I would give my life. The "simplicity on the other side of complexity" is the coarse-grained explanation, the abstraction, that has done the complex consideration to collapse the appropriate aspects. We only need to fine-grain our attention to understand that appropriate reduction for the given situation we're trying to grok. But the low-res is no less noble than the high-res, so long as you or someone else has done the hard work of finding the right abstraction... :)

starfallg 3y ago
I don't think the article is valorising the detail view at all, only to highlight the lack of appreciation and neglect of the ability to move down the layers as opposed to moving up. Higher level abstractions tend to be not grounded. When we operate on abstractions, we also tend to move up and lose the capability to execute on the lower layers. It results in a lot of inefficiencies and presents new failure scenarios.
- patcon 3y ago
  It sounds like we perhaps agree on most of the important things. I'm with you on new failures at each level of focus. Again, moving between feels the value. Any specific level will have failures, and only spreading attention across all levels can helps us hit a minimum -- probably never zero, because then we'd be gods in the territory :)
verisimi 3y ago
The map is not the terrain. Any map, coarse grained or fine grained has its place, they maybe be useful. But neither are actually the terrain. Even software models aren't the real thing.
- coxmi 3y ago
  This is a great hacker news meme, but a map is still obviously useful. To analyse the map, its author and its purpose, is just as useful as getting into the weeds and understanding the terrain. What use would knowing the terrain be if you can’t share your mental model of it with someone else?
  - kybernetikos 3y ago
    I'd go further. If you think you understand the terrain in itself, all you've really done is make a more detailed map. You can ask the terrain questions, but you can never understand it or predict it or do anything useful with it except by making a map. "The map is not the terrain" is useful if you're in danger of throwing away evidence that challenges your favourite model, in all other cases it distracts attention from the fact that building models is essential and important.

corethree 3y ago

>The world exists in infinite resolution, and that’s what we’re built for. The truth is made of details, and they go all the way down. Any ideas about it just rest on the top. This isn't known. The greatest depth of resolution we know about is the elementary particles. Quarks, Leptons and Bosons. The smallest meaningful length is the 1.6×10^−35 and it's known as the planck length. We don't know what's smaller than that length. This length places a hard limit on our very notion of abstraction. You think your memories and imagination are ethereal abstractions that have no meaningful size or resolution? False. Your memory and even thought takes up physical space in your head and whatever that physical space is it can be no smaller than the planck length. This limit puts a full stop on even the most ethereal abstraction you can think of. Everything and I mean everything... even that feeling you get when you remember the sound or smell from some place in your childhood, that feeling itself takes up physical space and has a limited resolution. I get what he's talking about and I know I'm being pedantic. But the fact that he just stated something that's axiomatically wrong shows that his ideas here are not likely to be fully correct and he's not thinking deep enough. Our existence is owed to the macro viewpoint. I am not simply a collection of atoms and particles. The arrangement of those particles is what makes me human. The macro view with less details is what gives me, and you meaning. From a quantitative perspective this viewpoint is measurable as entropy. The truth is often hidden by the details it is not hidden in the details.

cwillu 3y ago
“If you could look even closer (and you can with a microscope) the detail would continue to unfold essentially forever, or at least until you reach the molecular scale”
- corethree 3y ago
  This is also wrong. We have ways to deduce resolution smaller than the molecular scale.
  - shmeeed 3y ago
    Your Planck-length-attention to detail seems to have failed to parse the "at least" part of the sentence, which by formal logic makes it correct again, doesn't it? By the way you're saying yourself that this scale has to be deduced and isn't observable anymore. I suppose it could be argued that the essay is rather about what we as human individuals could observe by more or less direct means, and about what normal people could comprehend if they wanted to. It's not a stretch to say that musings about the quantum realm are beyond the scope of most. You're not wrong, of course the author could have chosen to extend his argument deeper into the fine structure of matter itself. But he didn't, and I think he gets the point across just as well, so the discussion seems a bit silly.

Joel_Mckay 3y ago

The article premise is false, and content is 56% well structured LLM nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant Some people do have trouble distinguishing sycophantic idealism... from evidenced observation. The "Baloney Detection Kit" may help, or just make yourself angrier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ Ok look, a sale on jellybeans... the day is getting even better. =)

nerdponx 3y ago
False how? It's just one person's observations and opinions.
- Joel_Mckay 3y ago
  Evidenced observation differs in that the phenomena holds constant for everyone, and the reasoning behind that model constantly improves. The poem alludes to the concurrent perspectives that may all be considered "Truth". Yet skillfully pokes fun at our tendency to seek simple explanations about incomprehensible subjects. i.e. the idea of perfectionism itself is a false concept, and often can never be 100% certain of anything. Even in the field of Mathematics there are provably unsolvable problems, and that will unlikely ever change. In summary: 1. It is easier to prove something logically false 2. It is difficult to prove an ephemeral truth will hold 3. A false sense of accomplishment drives people to behave in aberrant irrational manners Have a wonderful day, and remember to tip your robot on the way out =)

kubb 3y ago

Talking about "the truth" is tricky because everyone sees things differently, words can't always capture reality perfectly, and what we think is true can change over time. Plus, the idea of truth itself is really complicated.

throwaway290 3y ago

Truth is not defined. First author equates truth with details of reality, which is doubtful already. Then jumps to examples like > Is drug prohibition justifiable? Was Napoleon an admirable figure? Question of opinion can't be answered with truth. Or if you want any answer to it is truth, because it is truly your opinion. It's a lazy take with a poorly chosen analogy at the root.

mmcdermott 3y ago
Both of those questions are fundamentally questions of morality. This means that there is, or at least can be, an objective answer to the question provided sufficient parameters are specified, not least of which is the system of morality being used. The distinction matters. I may not enjoy a book purely as a matter of taste. I think most of us have had the experience of reading or watching something that we would have agreed was well-crafted while also not remotely enjoying the experience. There is a good deal of pure subjectivity here. I cannot be argued into enjoying something. However it is possible to either change one's system of values or else to be shown that one's evaluation of a subject in the light of those values is missing something.

crabmusket 3y ago

The image captions are a fun touch.

BlueTemplar 3y ago
«[The leaf] has rounded serrations along its edges» - uses a picture of a leaf not showing the edge :(

ryanjshaw 3y ago

This seems to be an article written for neurotypical people and I envy them somewhat in this respect. I live my life in the detail and while it has benefits for my career, it has been a source of exhaustion and frustration when communicating with people who don't live in the details i.e. the majority. It seems much easier to live at the high level and choose to drill down into the details than to live in the details and remind yourself to step back, but I could be wrong. For example: I edited this brief comment 8 times.

movpasd 3y ago
As a non-neurotypical person myself, I sympathize with your feelings on the article, and felt them myself when reading it. But I also found it to be quite empowering. The truth is, whatever your field of work or interest is, the detail _is_ beautiful, and not everyone gets to experience it. Don't get me wrong, there's a spectrum (no pun intended) and feeling constantly lost in a sea of details can be really disabling, especially in a social order that demands quick judgements, conformity, and adaptibility to constant change. (No "but" at the end of this paragraph, it just sucks.)
mdgrech23 3y ago
I feel like we live in a world w/ to many "high level people". At least in the world of software development. We need more people in the weeds. 20 Different high level ideas from high level stakeholders benefits no one. It's also way easier and maybe even more fun to be a "high level" abstract thinking. The devil and quite frankly the work is in the nuts and bolts but others want to to dismiss that as "sausage making".
butlike 3y ago
Sometimes being constantly absorbed in the details makes you miss the forest for the trees. High-level people have to think in broad stokes cause the details can be overwhelming. It's important to interface with the opposite type of person from time to time to get the whole picture.
strken 3y ago
That's surprising to me. I can't imagine what it would even mean to live your life at the lower abstraction levels, since those are things like molecules, cells, and muscle fibres. I'm tempted to interpret your reply as saying you operate on a more detailed level than the average person, rather than the most detailed, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

bibelo 3y ago

And that my friends, is why Virtual Reality will never ever be real, or even look real. I know it's truism, but the sheer realization of that makes me empty and desperate (jk). Just trying to simulate realism would mean you take an object in your hand in VR, and are able to examine it closely, seeing scratches or others details. Of course, these details must not be made using procedural generation. That would mean going back to square 1, a superficial world of shallow details. We want details that have a history. So imagine you're able to find a way to scan these details and reproduce them in VR. You'd have the same problem at a deeper level, say using a magnifier, only revealing the void of your digital life and nothing around has meaning. Say now you're able to scan details at deeper levels, even at an infinitely deep level. You'd have to store them, and that would probably mean using more storage that they are atoms in this world, so it would be impossible, or would it? Would it be possible to compress details, or vectorize them, so that they'd take less weight that their equivalent? Another problem would be details for objects that exist only in VR. Here again, these details would need to have a history. That scratch would be here or there and in that shape for a specific reason. That would require a deep understanding of physical laws, and being able to reproduce them at infinitely smaller levels. And store them here again. So I guess that makes the whole task impossible. I guess it'll never be possible to transfer your soul into VR, and even if it were, you'd become crazy realizing your world is limited, not by the geographical limits you're bound to, but by the depth of details you'd be able to explore.

imadierich 3y ago
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immibis 3y ago
Just don't put magnifiers in your VR game. Problem solved.
persnickety 3y ago
> We want details that have a history. For the VR to be real, sure. But for the VR to look good? I don't think so. People don't care about history when they care about looks. Case in point: pre-damaged jeans. Procedural generation is also not failing when it's lacking details, but when the large scale stuff looks off. Take a basic example of grass patterns in games: if they are made non-repeating, then at the level of detail the game is about, they have all the realism you could ask for.

deleted 3y ago

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bambax 3y ago

All true, but quite banal? All those blog posts that sell themselves as profound philosophical insights while pushing truisms like pearls on a string are, well, disappointing. This is hollow.

AndrewDucker 3y ago
Things which are obviously true to someone who has encountered them many times before (or so long ago that they have forgotten how it felt not to know them) are shining pearls of wisdom to the person who has never come across them before.
- bambax 3y ago
  Maybe, but... where do we start? Also, interestingly, TFA clearly states that children start out seeking details, and it's only adults who fail to see the trees for the forest, so to speak. If this is correct, everyone has "encountered this many times before"...

belugacat 3y ago

The premise reminds me of this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29429385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29429385

lqet 3y ago

This article strongly reminded me of "Reality has surprising amount of detail", an old HN favorite: http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-... E: which was also noted by the top comment under the article

gumby 3y ago

As famously noted by Horton, though I prefer Blake: Auguries of Innocence BY WILLIAM BLAKE To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons Shudders Hell thr' all its regions A dog starvd at his Masters Gate Predicts the ruin of the State A Horse misusd upon the Road Calls to Heaven for Human blood Each outcry of the hunted Hare A fibre from the Brain does tear A Skylark wounded in the wing A Cherubim does cease to sing The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight Does the Rising Sun affright Every Wolfs & Lions howl Raises from Hell a Human Soul The wild deer, wandring here & there Keeps the Human Soul from Care The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife And yet forgives the Butchers knife The Bat that flits at close of Eve Has left the Brain that wont Believe The Owl that calls upon the Night Speaks the Unbelievers fright He who shall hurt the little Wren Shall never be belovd by Men He who the Ox to wrath has movd Shall never be by Woman lovd The wanton Boy that kills the Fly Shall feel the Spiders enmity He who torments the Chafers Sprite Weaves a Bower in endless Night The Catterpiller on the Leaf Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly For the Last Judgment draweth nigh He who shall train the Horse to War Shall never pass the Polar Bar The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat Feed them & thou wilt grow fat The Gnat that sings his Summers Song Poison gets from Slanders tongue The poison of the Snake & Newt Is the sweat of Envys Foot The poison of the Honey Bee Is the Artists Jealousy The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags A Truth thats told with bad intent Beats all the Lies you can invent It is right it should be so Man was made for Joy & Woe And when this we rightly know Thro the World we safely go Joy & Woe are woven fine A Clothing for the soul divine Under every grief & pine Runs a joy with silken twine The Babe is more than swadling Bands Throughout all these Human Lands Tools were made & Born were hands Every Farmer Understands Every Tear from Every Eye Becomes a Babe in Eternity This is caught by Females bright And returnd to its own delight The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath Writes Revenge in realms of Death The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air Does to Rags the Heavens tear The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun Palsied strikes the Summers Sun The poor Mans Farthing is worth more Than all the Gold on Africs Shore One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands Or if protected from on high Does that whole Nation sell & buy He who mocks the Infants Faith Shall be mockd in Age & Death He who shall teach the Child to Doubt The rotting Grave shall neer get out He who respects the Infants faith Triumphs over Hell & Death The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons Are the Fruits of the Two seasons The Questioner who sits so sly Shall never know how to Reply He who replies to words of Doubt Doth put the Light of Knowledge out The Strongest Poison ever known Came from Caesars Laurel Crown Nought can Deform the Human Race Like to the Armours iron brace When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow A Riddle or the Crickets Cry Is to Doubt a fit Reply The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile Make Lame Philosophy to smile He who Doubts from what he sees Will neer Believe do what you Please If the Sun & Moon should Doubt Theyd immediately Go out To be in a Passion you Good may Do But no Good if a Passion is in you The Whore & Gambler by the State Licencd build that Nations Fate The Harlots cry from Street to Street Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet The Winners Shout the Losers Curse Dance before dead Englands Hearse Every Night & every Morn Some to Misery are Born Every Morn and every Night Some are Born to sweet delight Some are Born to sweet delight Some are Born to Endless Night We are led to Believe a Lie When we see not Thro the Eye Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light God Appears & God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in Night But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of day

Amorymeltzer 3y ago

>Unsurprisingly, amidst the incredible volume of information coming at us, there’s been a surge in low-res, ideologically-driven views: the world is like this, those people are like that, X is good, Y is bad, A causes B. Not complicated, bro. >The world exists in infinite resolution, and that’s what we’re built for. Except of course that's not how people or nature work. Call it an algorithm or heuristic or whatever you want, but e.g. "don't eat brightly colored animals" is wildly successful. The world does exist in "infinite resolution" but we are not built for it. That's the basic premise of The Good Place: life's too complicated for a person to look at the infinite resolution of everything; just doing the best one can and trying to do better is really all we can do. Don't over-generalize about people, but these shorthands are how we get through an infinitely complicated day. Also, as a kid playing some version of what we called murder[1], a good rule of thumb was the murderer was the one who gave too much detail. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wink_murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wink_murder

photochemsyn 3y ago

Nice read, interesting discussion. I'd add that switching one's perspective from one viewing angle to another, regardless of the resolution, often provides invaluable information. A classic example is looking at two different shadows - one is a square, the other is a circle. The same object (a cylinder) can cast these two shadows. In the realm of ideas, such as the examples given on drug prohibition and Napoleon, this translates into generating arguments for and against the idea. Indeed, when querying LLMs on subjects, one of the more useful techniques is to ask for the pro/con arguments, essentially getting the LLM to argue with itself.

eszed 3y ago

Apropos the first examples given in TFA, I have a friend who worked at Oxford Scientific Films, back in the '70s and' 80s. When Jim Henson wanted to make a Serious Movie, with puppets, he hired OSF (or artists from - I don't know the exact business arrangement) to build the sets. They had experience with natural materials, which Henson wanted precisely because of their fractal detail. My friend has a credit somewhere towards the end of the reel on Dark Crystal, which I thought was cooler than he did when he told me.

jimkri 3y ago

I really liked this. It reminds me of Michael Pollan's book A Place of My Own The Architecture of Daydreams - https://michaelpollan.com/books/a-place-of-my-own/ https://michaelpollan.com/books/a-place-of-my-own/ Michael goes into great detail on building his own office space. It was really cool to read all the details. It also reminds me of a Tom Silva quote, "The money is in the details."

csours 3y ago

There's something related to this that I want to explore: Limits of rationality and human experience. Rationalists break things down with logical tools to a point where they can get an answer - they zoom in to specific problems. This is good and useful. The problem comes when we zoom back out again, and try to generify the specific solution. The specific solution works in a certain context, but we haven't proven that it works in other contexts. Then someone makes an authoritative statement about psychology or sociology or politics that makes sense in their context, but it ignores the human experience and history. Everybody is made of their own details.