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Lumifer comments on Would you notice if science died? - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Douglas_Knight 08 March 2016 04:04AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 09 March 2016 10:56:37PM 0 points [-]

The simple construction of using evolutionary learning to refine heuristics that were extracted from deep learning neural networks trained on expert data.

Two previously known and well understood components, put together in a new and novel way that expands our knowledge of what is possible. That is science.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 March 2016 03:38:07PM 1 point [-]

Two previously known and well understood components, put together in a new and novel way that expands our knowledge of what is possible. That is science.

Interesting. I think that is pretty clearly engineering :-)

Of course, this is all a matter of definitions.

Comment author: [deleted] 10 March 2016 07:05:28PM 1 point [-]

It's not an either-or. Some reasonable working definitions: Science is a process by which we expand human knowledge. Engineering is using extant human knowledge to construct artifacts, sometimes repetitive, sometimes novel. Doing some mindless engineering task is not science. But doing something innovative and new makes available new knowledge, which if processed in the correct way is doing science. So you can do both.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 March 2016 07:39:58PM 1 point [-]

You are basically saying that the creation of s'mores was science ("previously known and well understood components, put together in a new and novel way that expands our knowledge of what is possible").

My idea of science is more narrow.

Comment author: [deleted] 10 March 2016 09:31:03PM 1 point [-]

The first person that created a s'more? Yes. Culinary science is a thing.