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Viliam_Bur comments on "Dialectics"? - Less Wrong Discussion

1 Post author: CyrilDan 12 July 2014 06:34AM

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Comment author: Viliam_Bur 12 July 2014 05:04:02PM *  0 points [-]

This seems to me similar to "emergence". Even if you know that some complex thing "emerges" from the parts, without details it does not allow you to construct the complex thing. (Only when someone else constructs the complex thing, you can say: See? I was right! It did emerge!)

Analogically, you can say: "If you have an idea X that seems good but imperfect, you can improve it by considering X and non-X, and trying to pick and put together the best parts of both." It seems Deeply Wise, but... without more details it's useless for generating knowledge. (Only when someone else comes with the improved idea, you can say: See? It has some similarities with X and some similarities with non-X! It is a dialectic outcome!)

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 14 July 2014 12:23:55PM 2 points [-]

Yes, as noted many times before, noting that X emerges from Y and Z is the beginning, not the end. It's just a way of reducing the solution space modestly, and predicting that the result is likely to be very complicated if it's not obvious.