Author: Ingo Althofer
Date: 12:11:31 12/30/05
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On December 30, 2005 at 13:56:53, Djordje Vidanovic wrote:
>On December 30, 2005 at 13:02:43, Ingo Althofer wrote:
>>Some 12 years ago I had a technical article on this
>>("On telescoping linear evaluation functions") in the
>>ICCA Journal (now ICGA Jornal), Vol 16 (June 1993),
>>pp. 91-94, describing a theorem (of existence) which says
>>that in case of linear evaluation functions with lots
>>of terms there is always a small subset of the terms
>>such that this set with the right parameters is
>>almost as good as the full evaluation function.
>
>No insult intended, but much before your article William of Occam said "Numquam
>ponendo est pluritas sine necessitate", or, in plain English "one should not
>increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain
>anything", which is, in cybernetics, dubbed as the principle of parsimony.
Right. But Occams argument is a philosophical axiom,
whereas the telescoping result is a theorem with
strict mathematical proof (within the framework of reel linear
algebra).
>Fruit is in all probability based on that principle, but never forget that
>simplicity does not necessarily mean lack of intelligence in a program; on the
>contrary developing the model will become much easier, and there is less chance
>of introducing inconsistencies, ambiguities and redundancies.
Right. And for good reason engineers have the sentence:
Technics in perfection is inconspicuous.
(Translated from German, where it goes "Technik in Vollendung
ist unscheinbar.")
Ingo.
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