Simple Rules, Complicated Outcomes


Simple rules, applied long enough and in conjunction with other simple rules, can result in enormously complicated outcomes and systems. Often, the outcome is not even remotely close to our intention. This is something we know well from experience; and yet we also continue to act and believe that there exist some areas where this isn’t true. This tendency to believe (or apply) a rule in some areas but not others has a technical name: domain dependence.

The laws of physics are one such example. Most of the laws are fairly straight forward; and yet the universe they produce is insanely complicated… in comparison to what you may expect by looking at each law in isolation. It’s when they come together that things become really complicated.

Or take sci-fi writer, Isaac Asimov’s famous “three laws of robotics”, formulated in 1942:
1)      A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2)     A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3)     A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
What could possibly go wrong with those laws, right? And yet, even a set of such few and simple laws leads to all kinds of unintended consequences, “some of which are explored in Asimov’s own writings”, says Nick Bostrom in his book, Superintelligence. Then again, maybe this isn’t a good example to prove my point, because what Bostrom wonders might well be true:
“Asimov probably having formulated the laws in the first place precisely so that they would fail in interesting ways, providing fertile plot complications for his stories.”

And yet people believe that religious edicts are different, that despite having (most) rules that are perfectly moral and good, they couldn’t produce highly undesirable outcomes when taken in conjunction. Even though they obviously do just that. Sometimes even in isolation, depending on context. If a mob is chasing someone to unjustly lynch him, do you disclose his location? Or do you lie and say you didn’t see him? Is it OK to lie sometimes?

So why did God frame rules like this? Is it because He didn’t have the computational power to see through the end to end consequences of how the rules would play out, a la the laws of physics? Or did He want to be entertained and watch interesting stories, a la Asimov?

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