What I really had in mind was something like this: given a certain amount of data, how many models exist which describe the data? I think it's fair to assume there are several. For instance, in terms of math, you can express the same equation in several different ways, none of them less right than the other. You can also come up with several approximations and all their different versions, which add up to a lot of ways of describing the same data.

In essence this is what our mind does, it takes a stream of data and proceeds to build equations that approximate it. Of course the more data the less equations you can have but still you can always have more than one. So I don't think it's really that simple to explain why we chose a particular equation. Survival doesn't explain much in my opinion as different equations could achieve the same goal, some of them even more efficiently. And to make it worse, the concept of survival itself is part of the equation, not necessarily of the data.

Now I think I really lost my ability to communicate :)

• Actually, Harv said the same thing - aurino - May 1, 2001 - 17:59 UTC
• Your communication skills - paulm - May 1, 2001 - 18:30 UTC
  • No beliefs = agreement - aurino - May 1, 2001 - 19:26 UTC
    • Quibbling=disagreement - paulm - May 1, 2001 - 21:28 UTC
      • This is not working - aurino - May 2, 2001 - 12:49 UTC
        • OK. I'll be watching for it (NT) - paulm - May 2, 2001 - 16:18 UTC
          • Still watching Paul? - aurino - May 5, 2001 - 15:42 UTC