I do, but more or less only to the extent that they will make potential different predictions. If two models are in principle incapable of making different predictions, I don’t see why should I care.
so e.g. you don’t care if trees exist or not? you think people should stop thinking in terms of trees and stick to empirical predictions only, dropping any kind of non-empricial modeling like the concept of a tree?
Isn’t it convenient that I don’t have to care about these infinitely many theories?
why not?
Since there is an infinity of them, I bet you can’t marshal critical arguments against ALL of them :-P
you can criticize categories, e.g. all ideas with feature X.
I think you’re getting confused between actual trees and the abstract concept of a tree.
i don’t think so. you can’t observe entities. you have to interpret what entities there are (or not – as you advocated by saying only prediction matters)
you can criticize categories, e.g. all ideas with feature X
How can you know that every single theory in that infinity has feature X? or belongs to the same category?
you can’t observe entities
My nervous system makes perfectly good entities out of my sensory stream. Moreover, a rat’s nervous system also makes perfectly good entities out if its sensory stream regardless of the fact that the rat has never heard of epistemology and is not very philosophically literate.
or not
Or not? Prediction matters, but entities are an awfully convenient way to make predictions.
I do, but more or less only to the extent that they will make potential different predictions. If two models are in principle incapable of making different predictions, I don’t see why should I care.
so e.g. you don’t care if trees exist or not? you think people should stop thinking in terms of trees and stick to empirical predictions only, dropping any kind of non-empricial modeling like the concept of a tree?
I don’t understand what this means.
The concept of a tree seems pretty empirical to me.
there are infinitely many theories which say trees don’t exist but make identical predictions to the standard view involving trees existing.
trees are not an observation, they are a conceptual interpretation. observations are things like the frequencies of photons at times and locations.
Isn’t it convenient that I don’t have to care about these infinitely many theories?
Since there is an infinity of them, I bet you can’t marshal critical arguments against ALL of them :-P
I think you’re getting confused between actual trees and the abstract concept of a tree.
I don’t think so. Human brains do not process sensory input in terms of ” frequencies of photons at times and locations”.
why not?
you can criticize categories, e.g. all ideas with feature X.
i don’t think so. you can’t observe entities. you have to interpret what entities there are (or not – as you advocated by saying only prediction matters)
Why not what?
How can you know that every single theory in that infinity has feature X? or belongs to the same category?
My nervous system makes perfectly good entities out of my sensory stream. Moreover, a rat’s nervous system also makes perfectly good entities out if its sensory stream regardless of the fact that the rat has never heard of epistemology and is not very philosophically literate.
Or not? Prediction matters, but entities are an awfully convenient way to make predictions.