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In the 16th century only a foolish optimist could have imagined that all these objects' motions could be explained by a simple set of principles. But in the 17t
by 300bps 11y ago
In the 16th century only a foolish optimist could have imagined that all these objects' motions could be explained by a simple set of principles. But in the 17th century Newton formulated his theory of universal gravitation, which not only explained all these motions, but also explained terrestrial phenomena such as the tides and the behaviour of Earth-bound projecticles.
It turns out that Newton's ideas on gravity are a mathematical approximation that at least ignored relativistic effects. See: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/52165/newtonian-gravity-vs-general-relativity-exactly-how-wrong-is-newton http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/52165/newtonian-g...
Newton's gravity was a theory about a single fundamental force - and it turned out to be not 100% accurate. Rather than be an example of how intelligence might be similarly possible to explain with a simple theory, I think it offers a perfect counter-example of why it almost certainly cannot.
- habitue 11y agoComets, and the planets and the tides, and apples falling from trees were found to be caused by the same underlying phenomena, despite seeming very different. Newton's insight that they were the same was not overturned by relativity, so the point stands quite well.
- 300bps 11y agoNewton's insight that they were the same was not overturned by relativity I almost feel like you're replying to someone else because I never said what you are contradicting. I merely said that Newton's gravity is a simplification that doesn't take all variables into account. So to point to Newton's gravity as an example of, "Sometimes simple things can be right!" actually makes it more of a counter-example.
- habitue 11y agoI was pointing out that the complex explanation is that comets have their own driving force, and tides have a separate driving force, and planets have their own reason for moving as they do, etc. Compared to that kind of hodge-podge, relativity is still a really simple theory. While relativity increased the complexity of the explanation of gravity, it didn't bring it anywhere near the level of complexity that might have been assumed before Newton. The author's argument is that our intelligence is likely not solely possible by the interaction of a large number of separate principles, but rather by some simple principle that manifests itself in different ways. I think if we find some simple principle that explains intelligence, and then later have to make a correction to the math of that principle, the resulting explanation will still be simpler than the idea that intelligence is made up of many different principles all of which have to be present.
- knome 11y agoIf we had a theory of intelligence that worked as well for reasoning as Newton's theory of gravity worked for modelling physics, we could ask the machines built with it to help us in figuring out the model accounting for the equivalent of relativistic effects.