The Internet as a Constant Test of Ratios Between "Use" and "Accuracy"
Is the internet a 24/7 laboratory for ratios regarding "the map isn't the territory" problem?
Dr. Box is famous for telling us that all models are wrong but some are useful, and in computer science we learn the tension between “overfitting” and “underfitting” in modeling. If I perfectly model a couch, then the model is accurate but useless, because then the model is identical with the couch, so what value does the model add? However, that means a model is useful because it is inaccurate, but the model also becomes useless if it is too inaccurate. What’s the best balance?
This problem arguably appears in any academic subject: the more technically correct my dissertation is on church history, the more complicated it will become and the more so only specialists will understand it. If I don’t make it technically correct, I leave myself open to criticism, but if I make it overly such, then the application and understandability of my work will be far less. I’ll be stuck as a specialist speaking with specialists, and only they may benefit from the work, and also the very technical accuracy of the work will probably make its application very narrow. Does this mean the work lacks value? Not at all—it’s to say we’re stuck in a tragedy, a “trade-off” of competing goods.
Theology is also a great example where the problem emerges, because its frankly heresy to make theological models too accurate. If we think we can know the Mind of God, we are a heretic, and in fact we turn our theology into God. Thus, theology must work to be accurate but not too accurate, for “true accuracy” is a delusion. Also, there is say in Christianity a skepticism against any theology which cannot be understood and employed by average people, and so in this we see an awareness of the tension between “accuracy” and “use.” What is the right balance? Nobody knows, and it seems to vary across personality types, across generations, and the like.
Everyone in every field has their own particular notions and ideas of what constitutes the best ratio between “use” and “accuracy,” and most likely disagree with the ratios of others. Everyone is making their own determinations, and our effectiveness of judging these ratios seems contingent on the question of if there is a “test” by which we can. That test has often been tied to information technologies: with the printing press, it became possible for many more people to access for themselves various ideas and thus ratios of breakdowns between “use” and “accuracy” and then “try for themselves” to see which ratios worked, which didn’t, and for who. Experiments were run, efforts instigated, and efforts abandoned. And that process continues to this very day.
The internet allows for a radical acceleration of the process of testing various ratios regarding a tradeoff between “use” and “accuracy,” say regarding Thomism, regarding Hayek, regarding Neoplatonism—on and on. There can similarly be tests regarding various breakdowns and ratios between “specialization” and “generalization,” and we all have a chance to throw our hat into the ring with models which we think manifest the best “tradeoff” between “accuracy” and “use.” Some people will like our models, others won’t, and some will rise while others fall. And the process will continue through and to each and every day.
The point of all this so described “testing” is not so much to determine the capital-T-Truth—that cannot be determined because we are not God, and/or because the act of searching for it constitutes it (“The Absolute”)—but to “guess well” the best “ratio” and “breakdown” between “use” and “accuracy” regarding a particular topic at a particular time. Since what constitutes the optimal ratio can change through time, and since new situations can arise in which new ratios need to be determined, the conversation never ends.
People often claim “the Great Conversation never stops,” but they don’t necessarily explain why, and thus a notion is presented without “conceptual meditation” that runs the risk of making learning seem arbitrary and a waste of time. Here, my hope is to explain why “the Great Conversation never ends” and this not mean we never make progress. Rather, the conversation never ends because there is always a tradeoff relative to new situations, and it is never self-evident what constitutes the best ratio for that tradeoff. Thus, we must keep thinking and experimenting.
If a thought could be a thing, if a signifier could be the signified, there would likely be no need for “The Great Conversation”: it is precisely this impossibility that gives imperative and life to thinking, and yet thinking often interprets this limitation as precisely what thinking exists to overcome. If thinking succeeded, it would perish, and thus the effort can lead to pathology and trouble. Thinking is not in the business of “full accuracy,” for this is impossible, but rather in the business of establishing, trying, and testing different ratios between “use” and “accuracy,” and then trying again, and then trying again, and then trying anew. Thus, the failure for complete accuracy is not necessarily evidence of a failure of thinking: in fact, achieving “complete accuracy” would mean we’ve done something “useless.” To make mistakes means we could be doing something useful. Then again, maybe not, and so we cannot be quick to fall into the mistake of reducing everything to “use,” as we cannot reduce everything to “truth for truth’s sake” (complete accuracy). No, we’re always doing both, failing in one as we succeed in the other, and thus we can succeed in humility. And this is life.
.
.
.
For more, please visit O.G. Rose.com. Also, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram, Anchor, and Facebook.
holy smokes Daniel this is brilliant.. this is exactly what i've been trying to say about intrinsic coordination vs. extrinsic coordination.. but articulated much more simply and profoundly