Yes, introducing optional parts to a system (they can fail, but it still succeeds overall) adds complexity to the analysis. I think we can, should and generally do limit their use.
There is a big difference between adding unnecessary parts which just complicate things, vs well-laid disjunctions.
For an engineering example, backup systems. You can have one power source (eg a connection to the power grid) and then another, totally different power source (eg a gasoline generator).
Aside from that, it makes sense to build in a lot of redundancy in particular parts of a machine (depending, of course, on application).
But I’m worried that the analogy between engineering and epistemology isn’t perfect, here. Having a backup generator is in some ways much more expensive than having a backup theory. And in many cases it will make sense to treat multiple theories as roughly equal alternatives (rather than having a main and a backup).
(BTW, disjunction is conjunction with some inversions thrown in, not something fundamentally different.)
Sure, it’s the de morgan dual, which means it is closely related but it is opposite in some ways—particularly, for the discussion at hand.
None of this analysis stops e.g. B from being the bottleneck. It does give some indication of greater complexity that comes from using disjunctions.
There are infinitely many hypotheses available to generate about how to accomplish the same sub-goal that C accomplishes. Should we or together all of them and infinitely increase complexity, or should we focus our attention on a few key areas? This gets into the same issue as the previous section about which hypotheses merit attention.
A straightforward engineering answer to this example is that we should focus on adding more alternatives to B, rather than adding more to C. In a situation where there is a top-level conjunction, we can focus on bottlenecks by adding alternatives to those.
This is similar to theorists noticing that quantum gravity is a trouble spot in our understanding of the world, and as a consequence, creating many competing theories of quantum gravity.
I’m not sure we have any disagreement with respect to this part, I’m just responding to your remarks.
There is a big difference between adding unnecessary parts which just complicate things, vs well-laid disjunctions.
For an engineering example, backup systems. You can have one power source (eg a connection to the power grid) and then another, totally different power source (eg a gasoline generator).
Aside from that, it makes sense to build in a lot of redundancy in particular parts of a machine (depending, of course, on application).
But I’m worried that the analogy between engineering and epistemology isn’t perfect, here. Having a backup generator is in some ways much more expensive than having a backup theory. And in many cases it will make sense to treat multiple theories as roughly equal alternatives (rather than having a main and a backup).
Sure, it’s the de morgan dual, which means it is closely related but it is opposite in some ways—particularly, for the discussion at hand.
A straightforward engineering answer to this example is that we should focus on adding more alternatives to B, rather than adding more to C. In a situation where there is a top-level conjunction, we can focus on bottlenecks by adding alternatives to those.
This is similar to theorists noticing that quantum gravity is a trouble spot in our understanding of the world, and as a consequence, creating many competing theories of quantum gravity.
I’m not sure we have any disagreement with respect to this part, I’m just responding to your remarks.