I suggest that you read the Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions sequence, if not the whole thing, then posts 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 11-18. If that sounds like a lot of reading to do, that’s because quite a lot of work has already gone into explaining the problems with the approach you’re suggesting.
OK, I will do this later today or tomorrow, but unless you wrote the article, I’m not sure we can properly address all the issues that may come up. I will relate everything that you throw at me directly back at this particular article. Already though that has it’s own probs. You told me you didn’t think that EY was talking about arrows that do not point anywhere. You said, in effect, that you weren’t sure. He might actually be saying that.
Will you address the posts I have made so far? I have gone to every link thus far, but I can see how I can potentially spend days, weeks or perhaps months and years, b4 ever getting back to my questions. I am a bit leary of all this because of my experiences. At 9 years old, I was tossed out of Vacation Bible School for asking “what about the dinosaurs” during the Adam and Eve story. My mom was called and I was sent home from school at age 12 for asking the teacher questions (Ha! math teacher BTW). And I was forced out of the military for not accepting (with very good reason) the party line about LOS microwave equipment. In all these instances, it was because I asked questions. I got no answers but was told I was being disruptive. In the first two cases, I literally got NO answers! In the last example, I was told to use ear plugs (no answers here either). They said that might eliminate the headaches the equipment was causing. Of course they didn’t know that I was communicating with the Turkish officers there on base who learning English to apply to the very same equipment. Our boys were being trained on the same faulty equipment that we sold the Turks and phasing out. Their gvnt told them this: The microwaves can cause HA’s, seizures, cancer, insanity and death. Now shut up an do your job!
So I hope you can see why I do not just accept authority blindly! I am not trying to be difficult. I just am, so it comes out that way!
Not accepting answers simply on authority is good. That’s one of the foundational ideas of science. But if scientists demonstrate an understanding that allows them to produce stuff that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to (and quantum theory definitely delivers on this count,) it’s worth taking the likelihood that they know what they’re talking about very seriously.
Some scientific subjects are difficult to understand, and take a lot of time and effort to build up to.
To quote from one of Eliezer’s other posts
Modern science is built on discoveries, built on discoveries, built on discoveries, and so on, all the way back to people like Archimedes, who discovered facts like why boats float, that can make sense even if you don’t know about other discoveries. A good place to start traveling that road is at the beginning.
Don’t be embarrassed to read elementary science textbooks, either. If you want to pretend to be sophisticated, go find a play to sneer at. If you just want to have fun, remember that simplicity is at the core of scientific beauty.
And thinking you can jump right into the frontier, when you haven’t learned the settled science, is like…
…like trying to climb only the top half of Mount Everest (which is the only part that interests you) by standing at the base of the mountain, bending your knees, and jumping really hard (so you can pass over the boring parts).
Don’t be so hasty to try and jump into the advanced stuff. It’s built on lots and lots of developments, and if you don’t take the time to understand those, it’s necessarily going to seem confusing, whether or not the people working on it really know what they’re talking about.
Ultimately all science has to eventually be used for prediction or it is useless except for aesthetic purposes. However, I do sympathize with what (I think) your main point was before, that prediction is no measure of a theory if the “theory” is just curve-fitting (it is, of course, a measure of the utility of the curve or equation that the data was fit to). That is really just common sense, though, so you may have meant something else.
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I suggest that you read the Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions sequence, if not the whole thing, then posts 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 11-18. If that sounds like a lot of reading to do, that’s because quite a lot of work has already gone into explaining the problems with the approach you’re suggesting.
OK, I will do this later today or tomorrow, but unless you wrote the article, I’m not sure we can properly address all the issues that may come up. I will relate everything that you throw at me directly back at this particular article. Already though that has it’s own probs. You told me you didn’t think that EY was talking about arrows that do not point anywhere. You said, in effect, that you weren’t sure. He might actually be saying that.
Will you address the posts I have made so far? I have gone to every link thus far, but I can see how I can potentially spend days, weeks or perhaps months and years, b4 ever getting back to my questions. I am a bit leary of all this because of my experiences. At 9 years old, I was tossed out of Vacation Bible School for asking “what about the dinosaurs” during the Adam and Eve story. My mom was called and I was sent home from school at age 12 for asking the teacher questions (Ha! math teacher BTW). And I was forced out of the military for not accepting (with very good reason) the party line about LOS microwave equipment. In all these instances, it was because I asked questions. I got no answers but was told I was being disruptive. In the first two cases, I literally got NO answers! In the last example, I was told to use ear plugs (no answers here either). They said that might eliminate the headaches the equipment was causing. Of course they didn’t know that I was communicating with the Turkish officers there on base who learning English to apply to the very same equipment. Our boys were being trained on the same faulty equipment that we sold the Turks and phasing out. Their gvnt told them this: The microwaves can cause HA’s, seizures, cancer, insanity and death. Now shut up an do your job!
So I hope you can see why I do not just accept authority blindly! I am not trying to be difficult. I just am, so it comes out that way!
Not accepting answers simply on authority is good. That’s one of the foundational ideas of science. But if scientists demonstrate an understanding that allows them to produce stuff that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to (and quantum theory definitely delivers on this count,) it’s worth taking the likelihood that they know what they’re talking about very seriously.
Some scientific subjects are difficult to understand, and take a lot of time and effort to build up to.
To quote from one of Eliezer’s other posts
Don’t be so hasty to try and jump into the advanced stuff. It’s built on lots and lots of developments, and if you don’t take the time to understand those, it’s necessarily going to seem confusing, whether or not the people working on it really know what they’re talking about.
I think your position is just too radical here.
Ultimately all science has to eventually be used for prediction or it is useless except for aesthetic purposes. However, I do sympathize with what (I think) your main point was before, that prediction is no measure of a theory if the “theory” is just curve-fitting (it is, of course, a measure of the utility of the curve or equation that the data was fit to). That is really just common sense, though, so you may have meant something else.