By the same token, I’m generally opposed to grand unified theories of the body. The shoulder involves a ball-and-socket joint, and the kidney filters blood. OK cool, those are two important facts about the body. I’m happy to know them! I don’t feel the need for a grand unified theory of the body that includes both ball-and-socket joints and blood filtration as two pieces of a single grand narrative.
I think I am generally on board with you on your critiques of FEP, but I disagree with this framing against grand unified theories. The shoulder and the kidney are both made of cells. They both contain DNA which is translated into proteins. They are both are designed by an evolutionary process.
Grand unified theories exist, and they are precious. I want to eke out every sliver of generality wherever I can. Grand unified theories are also extremely rare, and far more common in the public discourse are fakes that create an illusion of generality without making any substantial connections. The style of thinking that looks at a ball-and-socket joint and a blood filtration system and immediately thinks “I need to find how these are really the same” rather than studying these two things in detail and separately is apt to create these false grand unifications, and altho I haven’t looked into FEP as deeply as you or other commenters the writing I have seen on it smells more like this mistake than true generality.
But a big reason I care about exposing these false theories and the bad mental habits that are conducive to them is precisely because I care so much about true grand unified theories. I want grand unified theories to shine like beacons so we can notice their slightest nudge, and feel the faint glimmer of a new one when it is approaching from the distance, rather than be hidden by a cacophony of overblown rhetoric coming from random directions.
I think I am generally on board with you on your critiques of FEP, but I disagree with this framing against grand unified theories. The shoulder and the kidney are both made of cells. They both contain DNA which is translated into proteins. They are both are designed by an evolutionary process.
Grand unified theories exist, and they are precious. I want to eke out every sliver of generality wherever I can. Grand unified theories are also extremely rare, and far more common in the public discourse are fakes that create an illusion of generality without making any substantial connections. The style of thinking that looks at a ball-and-socket joint and a blood filtration system and immediately thinks “I need to find how these are really the same” rather than studying these two things in detail and separately is apt to create these false grand unifications, and altho I haven’t looked into FEP as deeply as you or other commenters the writing I have seen on it smells more like this mistake than true generality.
But a big reason I care about exposing these false theories and the bad mental habits that are conducive to them is precisely because I care so much about true grand unified theories. I want grand unified theories to shine like beacons so we can notice their slightest nudge, and feel the faint glimmer of a new one when it is approaching from the distance, rather than be hidden by a cacophony of overblown rhetoric coming from random directions.