Comment by mojuba
8 years ago
Two things that came to mind while reading this essay:
- The effect of a surprise when facing unexpected complications/details is because our brains tend to simplify things, or rather simplify the model of the world that we maintain. When you first hear that water boils at 100º your brain really really wants to assume it's that simple, no more than that. Simplifications are crucial for optimising the brain's power consumption, which it tends to minimize all the time.
- The amount of detail in human built stuff, as well as in our understanding of the world is a result of many centuries of perfecting and improving those things. Go a few millenia back and look at the stairs we were building then, they were awful. Or the fact that the process of boiling is so complex is a result of relatively recent discoveries in physics, just a few centuries ago.
Funny thing is, the details of the reality around us will only get more complex over time. Suppose in a few centuries from now stairs will be so complex and so perfect that no individual will be able to build them on their own.
Pure water boils at 100 ºC, in an environment at standard temperature and pressure, with sufficient vapor bubble nucleation sites.
If you're a cook, you don't really need to know all that, because you either live up in the mountains (at lower pressure) or you don't. You either have hard water (with more dissolved ions) or you don't. And your pots are never scrubbed perfectly clean.
Suppose that in a few centuries, stairs will have to account for different numbers of legs, or wheels, or different foot types, or varying amounts of gravity, or track gauge, or crystal habit, or effect on convection and ventilation, or whether classical Earth-standard humans will ever be expected to use them.