We can’t use Solomonoff induction—because it is uncomputable.
The “scientific assumption” that we are too stupid to use a sophisticated approximation of Solomonoff induction is more like a true fact: we can’t do that—and that is essentially because we are too stupid to know how to do it.
The idea of “Science” as incapable of using Occam’s razor seems like a bit of a straw man. I learned to use Occam’s razor by studying science. Distinguishing between scientific theories is listed as the first application of the razor here.
In my experience, it is rare that someone has a legitimate background in the appropriate use of Occam’s razor. I do not agree that this is a straw man. I think you’re also conflating two issues. I see it as an issue that individuals are not able to overcome biases well enough to reliably use Occam’s razor when promoting solutions to problems. The scientific community as a whole is much more successful in doing this, and no one (neither me nor the OP) disagrees. But an alternate issue arises which is that the scientific community tends to simply fail to evaluate whether or not a proposed theory wins (in the Occam’s razor sense) unless there is a tremendous stack of easily visible experimental evidence to motivate such an evaluation. This is a major reason why single-world views have persisted for so long. Few cling to single-world views because they are “favorite pet theories” (which would classify such an error into the appropriate-use-of-Occam’s-razor type). More often it is just that alternative explanations will simply not even be considered just because they don’t have the temporally aggregated endorsement of the scientific community.
If Eliezer walked up to Sir Roger Penrose and presented a great argument about why the explanation of consciousness due to quantum gravity was just a mysterious answer to a mysterious question, and Penrose replied with something like, “Come back and talk to me when you’ve got 20 years worth of experimental evidence on your side… I don’t want to hear about your retro-active interpretations… it’s not worth my time if there’s not a mountain of evidence to persuade me to update to any new position”, this would be the type of mistake that the OP is trying to point out. And as a grad student at an R-1 university, I can tell you this is anything but a straw man. People go around not updating their maps all the time and their reasoning is just that until some new interpretation is overwhelmingly salient in terms of a flurry of brand new experimental insights, they just won’t even consider that it exists. That’s a serious problem from a Bayesian perspective. And as the turnaround time for scientific results shortens, those willing to update sooner will have a distinct advantage.
Finally, I do not understand how you can say that “We can’t use Solomonoff induction—because it is uncomputable” is a “criticism” with respect to the ideas in the OP. The OP has absolutely nothing to do with the computability of Solomonoff induction. We can use it in the sense that you mentioned when you said:
Distinguishing between scientific theories is listed as the first application of the razor here.
That’s great that it’s listed there, much as it has been repeatedly listed and emphasized in major discussions for the last 30 years. But many factors are preventing that from trickling down to the work of actual scientists.
There were two criticisms:
We can’t use Solomonoff induction—because it is uncomputable.
The “scientific assumption” that we are too stupid to use a sophisticated approximation of Solomonoff induction is more like a true fact: we can’t do that—and that is essentially because we are too stupid to know how to do it.
The idea of “Science” as incapable of using Occam’s razor seems like a bit of a straw man. I learned to use Occam’s razor by studying science. Distinguishing between scientific theories is listed as the first application of the razor here.
In my experience, it is rare that someone has a legitimate background in the appropriate use of Occam’s razor. I do not agree that this is a straw man. I think you’re also conflating two issues. I see it as an issue that individuals are not able to overcome biases well enough to reliably use Occam’s razor when promoting solutions to problems. The scientific community as a whole is much more successful in doing this, and no one (neither me nor the OP) disagrees. But an alternate issue arises which is that the scientific community tends to simply fail to evaluate whether or not a proposed theory wins (in the Occam’s razor sense) unless there is a tremendous stack of easily visible experimental evidence to motivate such an evaluation. This is a major reason why single-world views have persisted for so long. Few cling to single-world views because they are “favorite pet theories” (which would classify such an error into the appropriate-use-of-Occam’s-razor type). More often it is just that alternative explanations will simply not even be considered just because they don’t have the temporally aggregated endorsement of the scientific community.
If Eliezer walked up to Sir Roger Penrose and presented a great argument about why the explanation of consciousness due to quantum gravity was just a mysterious answer to a mysterious question, and Penrose replied with something like, “Come back and talk to me when you’ve got 20 years worth of experimental evidence on your side… I don’t want to hear about your retro-active interpretations… it’s not worth my time if there’s not a mountain of evidence to persuade me to update to any new position”, this would be the type of mistake that the OP is trying to point out. And as a grad student at an R-1 university, I can tell you this is anything but a straw man. People go around not updating their maps all the time and their reasoning is just that until some new interpretation is overwhelmingly salient in terms of a flurry of brand new experimental insights, they just won’t even consider that it exists. That’s a serious problem from a Bayesian perspective. And as the turnaround time for scientific results shortens, those willing to update sooner will have a distinct advantage.
Finally, I do not understand how you can say that “We can’t use Solomonoff induction—because it is uncomputable” is a “criticism” with respect to the ideas in the OP. The OP has absolutely nothing to do with the computability of Solomonoff induction. We can use it in the sense that you mentioned when you said:
That’s great that it’s listed there, much as it has been repeatedly listed and emphasized in major discussions for the last 30 years. But many factors are preventing that from trickling down to the work of actual scientists.