Bay Area Events Roundup
This Saturday (i.e., the 24th, that is, tomorrow) is the peak of the Floating Festival.
Michael Vassar says: "I'm going to be speaking tomorrow (= Saturday July 24th) at 4PM at Bay Area Mensa, in Mountain View, on the scientific method, the history of science, and how to think rationally about most scientific controversies including the Singularity. Less Wrongers are invited to attend. Interested people should email David Verdirame."
The Open Science Summit is July 29-31, in Berkeley.
And as ever, the Singularity Summit approaches on August 14-15 in San Francisco. Now featuring James Randi, Irene Pepperberg, and John Tooby.
Localized theories and conditional complexity
Suppose I hand you a series of data points without providing the context. Consider the theory v = a*t for t<<1, v = b for t>>1. Without knowing anything a priori about the shapes of the curves, one must have enough data to make sure that v follows the right lines at the two limits since there is complexity that must be justified. Here we have two one-parameter curves, so we need at least two data points to pick the right slope and offset, as well as at least a couple more to make sure it follows the right shape.
This is what I’ll call a completely local theory – see data, fit curve. Dealing with problems at this level does not leave much room for human bias or error, but it also does not allow for improvement by including background knowledge.
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