>>45258There's actually an interesting point here regarding empiric process and seeing results of a phenomenon, and nature of real time calculations.
Say you have a very slow computer that is computing some kind of equation. Say it will finish its computation way after the point where you could see the result, in a million yeas or whatever. You do not know how it really works, only that it sometimes outputs certain results, and that in the end, it will come to a final conclusion.
You really want to know the result of the computation, but you can't make the computer go faster, or take it apart without breaking it. So you observe its behavior, study it, and make a "model" of the computer, based on rational extrapolations and reasoning. You build a much faster computer that, according to your model, is doing the same computation as the original computer, but much faster. It works for a few minutes and outputs the result.
Now can you actually say that you know what the slow computer will actually output a million years in the future? Empirically, no. You can only say what your model outputted, and how believable its answer is, depends solely on how well you can justify that your model is correctly simulating the real thing. It can even be believed that your model has 100% identical behavior to the original, and the outputs will match. You can still not say that you empirically know what the original computer will output.
Why does it matter? It matters when you establish the original computer as some kind of ultimate authority or arbiter of truth, or rest the premise of your argument on the infallibility of the original computer. Substitute it with "god", "evolution", "the divine process", "dialectics", "the free market", whatever. If the SOURCE of the authority that your argument hinges on is THE THING ITSELF, then even if you can substitute the "computation" with your model, you can not substitute the AUTHORITY of the original process with the authority of the model. So you can say "god is infallible" or "free market just works" or whatever, I could be willing to accept that, but when you start explaining to me how, or why, or how you think these things work, what they mean, and what we should do about it based on your reasonings, I only have YOUR authority and word to go on, not of the thing itself. And your word is only as good as you can justify that it is correct.
So what's my point? dunno, don't have one, just writing shit that comes to my mind.
>>45258There's actually an interesting point here regarding empiric process and seeing results of a phenomenon, and nature of real time calculations.
Say you have a very slow computer that is computing some kind of equation. Say it will finish its computation way after the point where you could see the result, in a million yeas or whatever. You do not know how it really works, only that it sometimes outputs certain results, and that in the end, it will come to a final conclusion.
You really want to know the result of the computation, but you can't make the computer go faster, or take it apart without breaking it. So you observe its behavior, study it, and make a "model" of the computer, based on rational extrapolations and reasoning. You build a much faster computer that, according to your model, is doing the same computation as the original computer, but much faster. It works for a few minutes and outputs the result.
Now can you actually say that you know what the slow computer will actually output a million years in the future? Empirically, no. You can only say what your model outputted, and how believable its answer is, depends solely on how well you can justify that your model is correctly simulating the real thing. It can even be believed that your model has 100% identical behavior to the original, and the outputs will match. You can still not say that you empirically know what the original computer will output.
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