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Simplicity- An Auto Example
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We can get a better sense of this by looking at our most prominent physical
artifacts, automobiles. The Model A Ford, introduced in 1928, was wonderfully
simple, indeed it was much simpler and easier to use than its predecessor the
Model T. Perhaps the first truly modern car - it was manufacturable, had all
of the same components as today's cars, and was designed to be cheap and easy
to assemble. When we try to restore one, we see all of the parts that are
still fundamental to today's cars. Compared to our automobiles, its parts
were much simpler, but it was actually more complex to construct. Despite the
great strides we have made in the sophistication of our automobiles, we have
actually made them simpler to put together. The roof of the Model A was
fabric, covering metal cross bars, screwed, clipped, nailed, and hooked into
the body. Compared to a modern car with a single stamped welded roof, it was
very complex with many parts.
Starting my son's Model A requires turning on the gas valve, setting the
spark advance, the choke, and the idle speed, pumping the gas petal, turning
on the key, holding in the clutch, and pressing the starter button with your
foot. Starting my Saab requires turning the key.
We no longer make a separate body and frame (chassis) of a car, but
instead mold them together in giant presses of the same steel. We no longer
make the floorboards of the car from multiple pieces of plywood carefully cut
to shape, but of a single sheet of molded steel. The parts of a modern car
are certainly much more sophisticated than those of the Model A, they are no
longer machinable or fixable by a home mechanic, but the overall construction
is actually simpler. The automobile companies make it easier and cheaper to
put together.
The history of the automobile is a mirror of the history of knowledge. The
first horseless carriages were very simple affairs, equivalent to a golf
cart. As they became automobiles, they grew more and more complex with new
parts added year after year, lights, brakes, doors, locks, transmissions,
reverse, electric starters, fuel pumps, heaters, automatic transmissions, and
on and on. At first, each of these new parts was just added on, effectively
bolted onto the machine. Thus the trunk was actually a wooden
"truck" that could be found in any home, strapped to the rear of
the car. Then came an integration, when separate parts were collected into a
new part or anew whole. The car looked different, worked differently, and was
manufactured in a new way. The Model A was such a car. The pattern follows an
increasing complex collection being replaced by more complex and
sophisticated elements and more highly integrated wholes. The automobile
industry has just been through another such cycle, today producing a car that
is much better built and much more satisfying to drive then those of the
1970's and '80's.
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Simplicity is the answer to
an interesting question about the elements of knowledge.
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This is exactly what happens when a new element of knowledge is invented.
It can hold much more, and it can contain a much wider variety of experience.
It enables us to greatly simplify our constructions, the building of other
artifacts. Simplicity is the answer to an important question. Why do so many,
but not all, of the greatest ideas appear at the biggest changes in the
"Pattern of Knowledge?" Why did the revolutions of the 7th century,
of the 1500's and the 1860's produce so many new and fundamental works? It is
because such new fundamental elements enable great simplifications in our
knowledges.
The new element is more powerful, more sophisticated, capable of holding
much more. And the fasteners are so much simpler. It makes our world look
simple and understandable. Once such an element is fashioned, it creates the
potential for such vast simplification that it opens the floodgates to
invention and with lightning speed passes from discipline to discipline.
While at first blush, we may think of a new element, as complicated, as
difficult, as sophisticated, as hard to create; as we come to understand it,
we see it as profoundly simple. We stop seeing what it took to construct this
element and begin to see it as our essential building block. It is more
abstract, and harder to get our arms around initially, but as we do learn to
understand it, we see its essential simplicity and how it simplifies the
world around us.
We thus do treasure simplicity as the Shakers did.
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Uniqueness implies rarity,
which explains why parsimony is so important in knowledge.
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The search for simplicity is fundamental to the work of
our scientists and philosophers. It is described as parsimony. The quest for
parsimony seems to be at the heart of the invention of knowledge by its
greatest inventors. Over and over again they have told us that they follow
Ockham's Razor, the fewer the propositions and the simpler the foundations,
the closer knowledge comes to the "truth." Nearly unanimously they viewed
their task as the creation of unity using the fewest assumptions.
Unique Artifacts turns this personal philosophy into a fundamental
postulate - a general philosophical principle. For the very essence of
uniqueness is parsimony. To be unique is to be rare, and we postulate that
the invention of human knowledge is the fashioning of unique artifacts.
Therefore, unique artifacts must indeed be very rare. Parsimony is the
essence of our belief that a construction is in fact unique, that another
artifact cannot be built which will have fewer assumptions and unite the same
experience. Parsimony gives us great confidence that our fastening artifacts
are rare and thus unique. That is why our greatest thinkers use the fewest
possible assumptions. That is why it is futile to try to devise a new field
theory of gravitation to replace General Relativity. If the assumptions are
few then we have a high level of certainty that the idea is unique.
Fastening artifacts are very precious. We invest great effort and energy
into them. We reorganize our cognitive world based on them. We concentrate
research on them. We extend them, building an entire scaffolding of knowledge
upon them. And we teach them to our children with proper diligence. We humans
are knowledge conservative; we do not change our knowledge or belief systems
readily - it takes too much effort. It is thus very important that the
fastening artifacts we choose be unique, that we will not have to reorder our
knowledges, particularly our fundamental concepts, very often. Therefore, we
search for parsimony as a powerful vector to uniqueness. It is this drive for
uniqueness that motivates the search for the fewest and the simplest set of
assumptions upon which to build works. This demand for uniqueness underlies
the greatest of our theories, the best of our art works, as well as the most
beautiful of our physical artifacts.
Parsimony, a simplicity of assumptions, the use of the fewest possible
foundation concepts, is the expression of uniqueness in thought. We love
simplicity and parsimony because we crave uniqueness and we believe that
fastening artifacts are unique when they are simple.
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Uniqueness explains the
shifts between the Elements - symbols, universals, objects,
environments, artifacts.
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Abstraction has proven to be a very powerful and yet very
elusive idea. While we use it all of the time to describe thought, we never
seem to get a full grasp of it. Uniqueness provides a measure of clarity. The
abstractness and uniqueness of artifacts are clearly connected. The more
abstract an artifact is, the broader its reach and the more likely it is to
be unique. When we think, we try to construct the largest idea that we can to
hold our experiences, for that idea will necessarily be rarer, more unique.
It will also be more abstract. We are always trying to replace many entities
with fewer entities, many sites with fewer sites, many fasteners with fewer
fasteners. We try to make larger artifacts that will replace a multiplicity
of smaller ones. Such larger artifacts, further from individual experiences
because they encompass greater quantities, are more abstract. Our drive to
uniqueness is necessarily a drive toward abstraction.
We often confuse and denigrate the abstract, when we are given a generalization
as an explanation. It is common for people to say - "It is the environment.
“It is human nature." - and for us to feel that we have been told nothing
useful. This is no more mysterious than the difference between a complete
physical artifact and one that is just beginning to take shape. The unfinished
project may appear wonderful to the artisan, because their finished vision is
clear. But for the rest of us that vision must be fully constructed. So it
is, for the artifacts of our imaginations. They must be fully constructed for
us to appreciate and accept them. Thus a broad generalization is not
necessarily an abstract artifact, unless it is complete.
Abstraction explains the differences between the artifacts developed by
children and adults, even when they are based on the same unique entities.
The adult's artifacts, generally richer in experience, are more abstract than
the child's. They are thus more unique and more powerful. While superficially
the artifacts seem the same, upon closer examination they will show substantial
differences in abstraction. As our minds grow stronger and our experience
increases, we seek artifacts that are more abstract for they are more unique
as vessels for larger quantities of experience.
In this same vein, abstraction helps us to better understand the differences
between everyday artifacts and the great human artifacts. They differ in
abstraction, in the quantity of experience they can hold. The great human
artifacts are abstract; they are models for other artifacts. Of course, they
must be finished, and they must be complete. The difference in abstraction is
thus the difference in uniqueness. Abstraction is a measure of uniqueness.
Now, finally, we return to those artifacts that started our quest, the
unique entities (symbols, universals, objects, environments, and now
artifacts). These elements of knowledge are also the greatest abstractions
that we have. And it is of great interest that our most powerful abstractions
should only come in these few forms. At its most fundamental, abstraction must
then not continuous. It must have discrete levels. We build abstraction on
the broadest scale in large and singular steps. Symbols, universals, objects,
environments, and now artifacts are the most abstract and the most unique
ideas that we have. Each is the next largest idea that encompasses the
previous one. We can make environments bigger and bigger, more and more
abstract; but if we are to construct an element that is different, that
enables simplification and not just greater abstraction, then our invention
jumps a significant level of abstraction. Each of these Unique Elements
is fundamentally different from the other. Each is a new stage of
abstraction.
Here we come to a crucial point. There are two great engines driving
thought, simplification and abstraction. We seek to construct ideas that are
simpler and thus more unique. And we seek to construct ideas that are more
abstract and thus more unique. Artifacts are unique when they are different
and when they are the same. When we seek simplicity we are searching for
difference. When we seek abstraction we are looking for sameness. The
essential tools for the construction of knowledge, sameness and difference
are also the essential tools that drive thought. To simplify is to group
together, to fashion sameness in our artifacts. To abstract is to differentiate,
to separate, to define a difference from other artifacts.
This combination of simplification and abstraction is the basis for the
unique entities. Each is more abstract that the previous one. Each produces a
great simplification. Without simplification, abstraction only leads to
complexity. And without abstraction, simplification leads to triviality.
These ideas are the heart of thought because they are the fundamental unique
elements of thought in the construction of singular artifacts.
Incredible as this may seem, it provides us with an explanation for the
unique entities. We commonly think of concrete to abstract as a continuum,
but when artifacts are most fundamental, their abstractness comes in very
discrete packages. Abstraction also helps us to understand the shifts in the
unique entities from symbols, to universals, to objects, to environments, and
now to artifacts in the Pattern of Knowledge. The sequence is growth
in abstractness of our fundamental elements. Each is the next level of
uniquely abstract entity. Each element allows a new level of abstraction, a
new unique step in the capacity of our artifacts to hold experience. And each
brings with it a new level of unity.
And here, finally, we return to the beginning of this work, where we found
the fundamental elements that produced the great periods of knowledge. These
elements - Symbols, Universals, Objects, Environments, and now Artifacts- are
the basis for knowledge, the templates upon which we design the artifacts we
use, the forms for the entities and thus the forms for all of the artifacts.
They are the very essence of our knowledge, the most fundamental building
blocks. We have already said that each is unique, fundamentally different
from the others. And now we can say why.
Each new element is unique because it is different from the one that came
before it. Each element is unique because it is a union of the one that came
before it, collecting all of those that came before it as the same. Each is
unique because it is different, fundamentally different from those that came
before it.
Thus we can fashion ever increasingly complex environments, adding more
and more, larger and larger environments together, but we fail to produce
increased uniqueness or even increased abstraction. For to create fundamentally
new uniqueness we have to construct a new kind of artifact, a new element. It
must be different from those that came before and yet include them. Such are
the unique elements.
Now, since we have made one, why can't we construct others? We have the
formula! We have the formula - but unlike singular, plural, parts, wholes,
and connections, relations, transformations - the unique entities do not form
a regular, repetitive pattern that we can apply an algorithm to. The unique
entities are free inventions, we cannot imagine the next one until we have
used, fully explored the current one. We make a new one by fashioning a union
of the old ones and then creating something fundamentally different. That is
what makes them unique. This last is an invention, an act of creation, and we
have been witness to a history of new invention that cannot leapfrog the
pattern.
We can thus predict the pattern of knowledge in broad brush for the
artifact period, but we cannot construct it out of sequence. And we shall
have to wait until this period is complete before we will find what it is
that will govern the knowledge building of the next. We need not at all fear
that we can see the end of our construction of knowledge. Indeed it is just
beginning. And it remains, as it has always been, an act of profound and
wonderful invention.
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