Rolf_Nelson2 comments on Decoherence is Simple - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 May 2008 07:44AM

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Comment author: Rolf_Nelson2 08 May 2008 12:46:18AM 1 point [-]

Some physicists speak of "elegance" rather than "simplicity". This seems to me a bad idea; your judgments of elegance are going to be marred by evolved aesthetic criteria that exist only in your head, rather than in the exterior world, and should only be trusted inasmuch as they point towards smaller, rather than larger, Kolmogorov complexity.

Example:

In theory A, the ratio of tiny dimension #1 to tiny dimension #2 is finely-tuned to support life.

In theory B, the ratio of the mass of the electron to the mass of the neutrino is finely-tuned to support life.

An "elegance" advocate might favor A over B, whereas a "simplicity" advocate might be neutral between them.