Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > These inferences can only be made about the compared properties of the > two things.
Not necessarily (though admittedly that's common). What one _can_ do and what we often used to do is study both the model and its referent by doing similar experiments on both. In the experiments, one does hone in on an aspect of both the model and referent. But, this is not the same as simplification or compression. Rather, it consists of _controlling_ the properties one wants fixed and allowing freedom to others. Such is not a simplification but a constraining or controlling. > In the case of life, "A law has to be simpler than what it explains." > because the precise processes of living things living are too complex to > directly grok (again, in full detail). Minimally, living things involve > billions of components that interact in non-linear ways. Sure, what we denote a "law" must be simpler than what it explains because the abstractions we denote by "law" are, by definition, simpler in abstraction than they are when fully applied. However, an "applied law" is no simpler than the processes its supposed to explain. Hence, in _practice_, laws are no simpler than what they explain. Only in academe or in didactic abstraction are laws simpler than what they explain. This is especially true in the special sciences like biology where heterogeneity is the rule. Natural sciences are, and will forever remain, dirty. Don't take my statements as an indication that I think such abstractions are not useful. In fact, I'm all for making such abstractions/compressions. But the trick with any compression or encoding is that the simpler the "law", the more complex the codec and vice versa. Simple codec means complex law. Simple law means complex codec. And a law is totally useless without its codec, the body of knowledge that allows one to encode into and decode out of the compressed form. The detail doesn't just go away. It's moved around to suit any particular purpose. Hence, in essence, simplification and compression are _not_ necessary for understanding. What's necessary is some (any) route by which we can observe and manipulate the system in a controlled fashion and some _language_ in which to describe what we did so that others may criticize us or repeat what we did. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org