Parsimony versus Complexity - Which Fits Reality?
20 January 2018 | San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico
The graphic above I first posted on the web many decades ago (hence the low resolution). Putting aside the issue of explicating male-female differences, for which transgressions I am surely already on the radical feminists' hit list, the issue this graphic raises is timeless and profound - parsimony versus complexity.
Let me explain how I came to this profundity today. I begrudgingly lowered myself into the engine compartment of Ubiquity to investigate the hydraulic oil leak I had observed in the hydraulic autopilot. To my delight I found that the "leak" I had observed was only from grease that had dripped from the hydraulic ram in the hot summer heat. That, plus my misreading the fluid level in the hydraulic reservoir, led me to the false conclusion that I had an hydraulic leak in the ram, the piston that drives the autopilot. I then shirked for a week looking further at the problem.
My investigation today once again affirmed my humanity, that I err. There was no leak at all. Of course, to figure that out I suffered contortions for an hour in the engine compartment, checking and testing, but the end result delighted me. Hurrah for no hydraulic leaks and for our humanity!
Luckily I was an empiricist, not a deductionist like Aristotle. Aristotle proffered that women had fewer teeth than men. But not believing in empiricism he never looked into his wife's mouth to count her teeth and discover his error.
But I did crawl into the engine compartment, endured discomfort for my belief in anti-Aristotelian empiricism, and discovered my error.
So Ubiquity's autopilot is fine.
But what about parsimony versus complexity?
In discomfort today crammed into Ubiquity's engine compartment, I marveled at the Rube Goldberg complexity of the autopilot: I push buttons and the electronics sends electricity to an electric motor; the motor operates a pump, the pump pumps hydraulic fluid, the hydraulic fluid pushes out or brings in an hydraulic ram, the ram connects to the steering quadrant, the steering quadrant turns the rudder shaft, and the rudder shaft turns the rudder.
The complexity sounds like Rube Goldberg, if you know the complexity is there, but most people don't understand enough to know that complexity exists. So maybe Rube Goldberg complexity is always there when you know enough to realize it.
BUT. In science scientists always value PARSIMONY - the simplest explanation is the best. Choose the simplest explanation that fits the evidence!
By the principle of parsimony you can dismiss, for example, most conspiracy theories. Who killed JFK? Oswald, that is the simplest answer that fits the evidence. Of course, sometimes there are real conspiracies, like the assassination of President Lincoln, and the evidence will require a more complex explanation.
And dear reader, for those of you still here with this blog post, how do you explain THIS, this post? Invoke parsimony. After my contortions in the engine compartment today, I mollified myself, and celebrated my glad discoveries about the autopilot, with margaritas at Club de Capitans. You need no more complex explanation.