A lot of people, including me, seem to have been brought to this old discussion recently, and I think it’s an interesting coincidence that I just today made this comment, which doubles as a response to selfreferencing here.
I would add that “simplicity, coherence, and accommodation of the data” are not independent—they can all fit into one metric, that of the shortness of the message needed to reproduce the data. Coherence is accounted for by how you have list any contradictions as exceptions to posited rules. Accommodation of the data is accounted for in that you have to reproduce all of the data, via generating algorithm or by restating it. Simplicity, of course, is inherent in the requirement of minimal length.
A lot of people, including me, seem to have been brought to this old discussion recently, and I think it’s an interesting coincidence that I just today made this comment, which doubles as a response to selfreferencing here.
I would add that “simplicity, coherence, and accommodation of the data” are not independent—they can all fit into one metric, that of the shortness of the message needed to reproduce the data. Coherence is accounted for by how you have list any contradictions as exceptions to posited rules. Accommodation of the data is accounted for in that you have to reproduce all of the data, via generating algorithm or by restating it. Simplicity, of course, is inherent in the requirement of minimal length.