Comment by alpos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alpos | Hacker News Reader

As much as I'd like to avoid criticizing "moore's law", this is a good example of why we shouldn't be using the term unless the effect described is a properly scientific description of a universal truth.

Both of these statements are mere observations of trends (short term ones in the grand scheme of things). Nothing about the trends observed in "eroom's law" must hold true in the future and, similarly, nothing about the trends observed in "moore's law" must remain true in the future.

There are no causal links behind either of these "laws", nothing to make them universally applicable throughout time. Indeed, both are stated as functions of time with an implied start date. These qualities make both mere observations of trends rather than proper scientific laws.

In the case of Moore's "law" the implied outcome seems optimistic and I think that is why we have so far given a pass on calling it a "law". In the case of Eroom's "law" the implied outcome is much more pessimistic so I am betting that we'll be unlikely to want to recognize it. However, if we accept Moore's observation as a "law", we'll have a hard time pointing to a distinction that prevents Eroom's observation from being a "law".

In my opinion, the right answer is to stop implying that either of these observations are inevitable or representative of a truth about the universe. Then we can properly recognize that both trends are easily subject to disruption through hard work and breakthroughs in related fields, or the lack thereof.

> There is no causality in either of these "laws", and that fact makes them mere observations of trends rather than proper scientific laws.

There's a lot in science that's mere observation.

The law of gravity is one example, since nobody knows where gravity actually comes from.

Good catch, I had to correct that bit upon re-reading. What I am truly aiming at is the quality of universality (applicability throughout time and space) that these observations lack.

With gravity we see a principle which, when mathematically described in sufficient detail, is consistent throughout space and time. What we know of it, we know only due to the observations we can make locally and in our timeline thus far; however, even with such a limited view, we can already see that gravity very likely is as it has always been and is the same throughout the universe. This is certainly not true of neither Moore's law nor Eroom's law.

I see. Another angle is that Moore's and Eroom's laws describe man-made processes (which are thus not universally applicable throughout time), just like e.g. economic laws describe man-made processes.

> The law of gravity is one example, since nobody knows where gravity actually comes from.

Please stop this. While I agree with your overall point, we know what causes gravity (the uneven curvature of space due to the distribution of mass). You can find this out by googling "what causes gravity". It's not a mystery anymore.

That is just the mathematical description of gravity according to general relativity. We don't have a theory for how the uneven curvature of space happens and we don't have a quantum mechanical theory for gravity either (gravitons are hypothetical, not proven).

You are right, but my point is that general relativity gives us enough of a causal model for gravity that throwing up our hands and saying "It's a mystery" is unacceptable.

It is not unacceptable to say we don't know with certainty -- it's faithful to science. You are correct we have a mathematical "casual" model, but that model is entirely observational. We know what happens with certainty in virtually any gravitational situation, but we remain very uncertain about the underlying mechanism of action. It is faithful and mature to recognize this.

We could split hairs all day, but a more detailed mathematical model like relativity is still just a model. We don't know with certainty why it works, what the underlying mechanism is. I would rather say it's unacceptable to tell people what questions they can't ask than to criticize a particular model.

The law of gravity is not one example.

Moore's law does not pick up on any causal pattern that connects transistor size to time.

The universal law of gravitation does capture a causal pattern that connects masses to other masses.

Whether we "know" what causes gravity or otherwise is irrelevant.

In both cases there is a described mechanism which produces the effects that are observed. In the case of Moore's law the mechanism has now been thwarted by physics, everyone knew that this had to happen at some point, but the surprise was how long physics was staved off by clever engineering. In the case of Eroom's law the mechanisms seem strong, regulators will continue to strengthen or at least remain as strong, new drugs will have a higher bar to jump due to old drugs, market economics will dictate that firms will throw money at high risk projects to hail mary out of trouble. So to say that nothing about these trends must hold true misses the point that they are/were strongly founded and could be used to make good predictions about the evolution of the economy and society.

I agree on all points. I merely wish to point out that the proper term for these is "strong trends" not "scientific law".

Scientific laws typically do support a tendency or trend in effect but the accurate description of a present trend is not sufficient to call the observation a "law". To consider that upgrade we need universality and persistence.

The fact that we know Moore's "law" and Eroom's "law" must both stop working at some point in the relatively near future means that they both fail this test.

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