Reasoning with two different formal systems simultaneously—code and runtime, logical theory and model, equations and data set, spec and implementation— this ability is on the edge between advanced systematic cognition and basic meta-systematicity. https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2018/02/10/iterating-between-theory-and-code/ …
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Seductive misleading analogy: code:runtime::model:reality leads to rationalist misunderstandings on the part of expert CS folks. The runtime is *also* a formal system, and thus almost perfectly dissimilar to almost all of reality. It lacks nebulosity.
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You think you are programming a computer, but actually you are herding clouds of electrons through a knobbly 3D maze.
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The entire postmodern world is built on our astonishing ability to damp the chaotic quantum dynamics (perfect unpredictability) of an electron gas into the digital abstraction (perfect predictability) in a billionth of a second.
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Physicists often adopt a different rationalist misunderstanding of the theory/reality relationship: that it is a matter of numerical approximation. That works only in highly restricted, closely-controlled circumstances. Relevant xkcd:pic.twitter.com/zFWyMCSBPi
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