5 ms·

I’ve always found this argument very cool (and obviously true in a mathematical sense) but not really ”practically” relevant. Like, the only reason you would be

by OskarS 3y ago

I’ve always found this argument very cool (and obviously true in a mathematical sense) but not really ”practically” relevant. Like, the only reason you would be interested to know the length of a coastline is because you want to know how far a ship would need to travel, and that is pretty well-defined. Or, like, if you wanted to do a naval blockade, you would need to know how many ships you’d need to cover the entire coast, given that a single ship can only cover so much. Still a cool argument though.

Gravityloss 3y ago
That's similar to what Robert L. Forward responded at school. He was transferred from mathematics to physics (to good effect!). He had a hilarious autobiography online but can't find it anymore...
em-bee 3y ago
what if you want to take a hike along the beach and you want to estimate how long it will take to walk?
- FredPret 3y ago
  This depends on how big you are on a scale of “quark” to “ship”.
- cozzyd 3y ago
  This is well defined as your stride and ability to micro correct determine the distance
OscarCunningham 3y ago
The interesting thing is that while there is a 'practical' length, it varies depending on the application. So if you want to put a wind turbine every 1km along the coast, and a lamp post every 100m along the coast, the number of lamp posts you need won't be 10 times the number of wind turbines. It will be more.
strogonoff 3y ago
The coastline paradox is useful as an illustration of how any measurement or observation is performed against an abbreviated version of reality that corresponds to a specific practical purpose, whereas the underlying complete reality is never phenomenologically accessible. (Measuring the coastline to arbitrarily high precision would require an arbitrarily high amount of energy and time, all the while the coastline is undergoing natural processes that change the result of the measurement.) Just how there can never be a complete map, there can never be a complete and provably correct model of reality. A sufficiently detailed map becomes the territory, and if you with your measuring apparatus are part of the territory then you’d need to recurse infinitely. The fact that there can never be a complete map (complete and provably correct model of reality) is irrelevant to natural science itself, but it’s relevant to how we think about natural science and its limitations when it comes to explanatory capabilities.

by OskarS 3y ago

Gravityloss 3y ago

That's similar to what Robert L. Forward responded at school. He was transferred from mathematics to physics (to good effect!). He had a hilarious autobiography online but can't find it anymore...

em-bee 3y ago

what if you want to take a hike along the beach and you want to estimate how long it will take to walk?

FredPret 3y ago
This depends on how big you are on a scale of “quark” to “ship”.
cozzyd 3y ago
This is well defined as your stride and ability to micro correct determine the distance

OscarCunningham 3y ago

The interesting thing is that while there is a 'practical' length, it varies depending on the application. So if you want to put a wind turbine every 1km along the coast, and a lamp post every 100m along the coast, the number of lamp posts you need won't be 10 times the number of wind turbines. It will be more.

strogonoff 3y ago

The coastline paradox is useful as an illustration of how any measurement or observation is performed against an abbreviated version of reality that corresponds to a specific practical purpose, whereas the underlying complete reality is never phenomenologically accessible. (Measuring the coastline to arbitrarily high precision would require an arbitrarily high amount of energy and time, all the while the coastline is undergoing natural processes that change the result of the measurement.) Just how there can never be a complete map, there can never be a complete and provably correct model of reality. A sufficiently detailed map becomes the territory, and if you with your measuring apparatus are part of the territory then you’d need to recurse infinitely. The fact that there can never be a complete map (complete and provably correct model of reality) is irrelevant to natural science itself, but it’s relevant to how we think about natural science and its limitations when it comes to explanatory capabilities.