"If it were necessary, for some curious legal reason, to draw a
clear line between human and nonhuman--for example, if a group of
australopithecines were to appear and one had to decide if they
were to be protected by Fair Employment Laws or by the ASPCA--I
would welcome them as humans if I knew that they were seriously
concerned about how to bury their dead." In this witty and wise
way, Lawrence Slobodkin takes us on a spirited quest for the
multiple meanings of simplicity in all facets of life.
Slobodkin begins at the beginning, with a consideration of how
simplicity came into play in the development of religious
doctrines. He nimbly moves on to the arts--where he ranges freely
from dining to painting--and then focuses more sharply on the role
of simplicity in science. Here we witness the historical beginnings
of modern science as a search for the fewest number of terms, the
smallest number of assumptions, or the lowest exponents, while
still meeting criteria for descriptive accuracy. The result may be
an elegant hypothetical system that generates the apparent world
from less apparent assumptions, as with the Newtonian revolution;
or it may mean deducing non-obvious processes from everyday facts,
as with the Darwinian revolution.
Slobodkin proposes that the best intellectual work is done as
if it were a game on a simplified playing field. He supplies
serious arguments for considering the role of simplification and
playfulness in all of our activities. The immediate effect of his
unfailingly captivating essay is to throw open a new window on the
world and to refresh our perspectives on matters of the heart and
mind.
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