Noam Chomsky may have been describing ANN-based models when he said, “There is a notion of success… which I think is novel in the history of science. It interprets success as approximating unanalyzed data
Very interesting, and I look forward to future posts on this. What you're saying resonates with a similar observation about the fields of theoretical physics and cosmology. I'm seeing increased reliance on speculative models, and I worry that we may be drawing conclusions from inaccurate models almost out of desperation due to lack of real progress in the fields.
The notion of hyperreal seems to me to parallel my sense that culture and science are increasingly detached from physical reality. Both seem more and more wrapped up in sheer fantasy.
Yes, I definitely see this in physics and cosmology. I have a master's degree in physics and I like to check in on physics and refresh my understanding from time to time. It took me a while to realize how difficult it is to flesh out the connections between experimental physics and theoretical physics in any kind of detail. How, for example, do you go from the wave equation to experimental predictions? It's all out there, but you have to do a fair bit of work. Ditto general relativity and, say, the orbit of Mercury.
Noam Chomsky may have been describing ANN-based models when he said, “There is a notion of success… which I think is novel in the history of science. It interprets success as approximating unanalyzed data
Haha wow that's spot on.
Very interesting, and I look forward to future posts on this. What you're saying resonates with a similar observation about the fields of theoretical physics and cosmology. I'm seeing increased reliance on speculative models, and I worry that we may be drawing conclusions from inaccurate models almost out of desperation due to lack of real progress in the fields.
The notion of hyperreal seems to me to parallel my sense that culture and science are increasingly detached from physical reality. Both seem more and more wrapped up in sheer fantasy.
Yes, I definitely see this in physics and cosmology. I have a master's degree in physics and I like to check in on physics and refresh my understanding from time to time. It took me a while to realize how difficult it is to flesh out the connections between experimental physics and theoretical physics in any kind of detail. How, for example, do you go from the wave equation to experimental predictions? It's all out there, but you have to do a fair bit of work. Ditto general relativity and, say, the orbit of Mercury.
Indeed. (The ontology of the wavefunction is *such* a vexing conundrum.)