Bugs and Formula Problems

[e4rl]

this post was prompted by discussion in this thread

(preformatted)

Were I to make a venn diagram of how I understood bugs and
formula problems it would probably look something like this:
 
  ------------------
 |         |
 |         |
 |         |
 |           |
 |     A      |
 |           |
 |    -------  |
 |    | / / / | |
 |   |/     /| |
 |    |   B   | |
 |   |/     /| |
 |    | / / / | |
 |    -------  |
  -----------------

where set 'A' is the set of all 'bugs'
and set 'B' is the set of all 'formula problems'.

Of course then when two people start making up formulas, 
especially when more than one person makes up a formula for
the same thing you get into the problem of whether person A's
formula is better than person B's formula. This caused a lot of
problems for a long time. Some people got [url=http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Bio/narrative_7.html]imprisoned[/url] and
some people even [url=http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/socr.htm]died[/url]. This happened until eventually people decided that the way to
choose was to see which one actually worked. In natural philosophy
people started calling this [url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/science_TheScientificRevolution.asp]science[/url]. Later other philosphers
started looking at the idea, decided it was important, and called it [url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/p1/pragmtsm.asp]pragmatism[/url].
So it looks like the problem comes when something cannot be
verified empirically (no experiment) or doesn't have a well
defined intended outcome ('work' doesn't mean anything).
This is like when something seems to work, like a record player, 
but people don't like it much, like a record player with a broken 
record on it ([url=http://www.eqemu.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2521]ETA plz...?[/url]).
 Well, you say, if people don't like it then it doesn't work.
Good answer, I say, but what if some people like broken records. 
So it looks like the real problem comes when something cannot 
be verified empirically (no experiment) or doesn't have a well 
defined intended outcome ('work' doesn't mean anything), or the 
way to bring about that intended outcome is not well defined 
(some people like broken records). This is the sort of thing that 
happens in art. So somehow this formula has become a work of 
art. If so then maybe we need a new diagram.

 
  ------------------
 |         |
 |         |
 |         |
 |         |
 |         |
 |           |
 |     A      |
 |           |
 |      -----------
 |      | / / /|/ / |
 |     |/ / / | / /|---- B
 |      | / / /|/ / |
 |     |/ / --|----|-----------
 |      | / | /|/ / |___________|
  -----------|------  / /|___________|
             | / | / / / |___________|
             |/ /|/ / / /|___________|
             | / | / / / |___________|
              ---|-------     _______|
                 |_______  C  _______|
                 |_______     _______|
                 |___________________|
                 |___________________|
                 |___________________|
                 |___________________|
                 |___________________|
                  -------------------

where set 'A' is the set of all 'bugs'
set 'B' is the set of all 'formula problems',
and set 'C' is the set of all things which are 'unaesthetic'

or


 -----------------------------
|_____________________________| ---- C
|_ ------------------ ________|
|_|         |________|
|_|         |________|
|_|         |________|
|_|           |________|
|_|     A      |________|
|_|           |________|
|_|         |________|
|_|         |________|
|_|      ----------- ___|
|_|      | / / /|/ / |___|
|_|     |/ / / | / /|___|
|_|      | / / /|/ / |___|
|_|     |/ /     / /|___|
|_|      | /   B   / |___|
|_ -----------|---     / /|___|
|_____________| / / / / / |___|
|_____________|/ / / / / /|___|
|_____________| / / / / / |___|
|_____________ ----------- ___|
|_____________________________|
 -----------------------------

where all 'bugs' are considered to be 'unaesthetic',
and all 'formula problems' are either 'bugs' or'unaesthetic'.

Either way I think that [url=http://www.eqemu.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2375]this[/url] particular 'formula problem' is a little
 bit of both 'A' and 'C'.

-e4rl