Huh, that shaft ended in loud screech and a clang… Let’s drop another shaft!
Why don’t you have to care about the infinity of theories?
I don’t have to care about the infinity of theories because if they all make exactly the same predictions, I don’t care that they are different.
This is highly convenient because I am, to quote an Agent, “only human” and humans are not well set up to deal with infinities.
they can be criticized as a group by pointing out that a shovel won’t help solve the problem
How do you know that without examining the specific theories?
We can only act on solutions we know of, and I have a criticism of the shovel category of ideas as we currently understand it.
Right, but the point is that you do not have solution at the moment and there is an infinity of theories which propose potential shovel-ready solutions. You have no basis for rejecting them because “I don’t know of a solution with a shovel”—they are new to you solutions, that’s the whole point.
To the extent you have a default, you can partly change what that default is, and partly reinterpret it after doing the observation.
Yes, of course, but you were claiming there are no such things as observations at all, merely some photons and such flying around. Being prone to errors is an entirely different question.
one entity (or none) is as good as another as long as the predictions come out the same?
Predictions do not come out of nowhere. They are made by models (= imperfect representations of reality) and “entity” is just a different word for a “model”. If you don’t have any entities, what exactly generates your predictions?
I don’t find these replies very responsive. Are you trying to understand what I’m getting at, or just writing local replies to a selection of my points? This is not the first time I’ve tried to write some substantial explanation and gotten not much engagement from you (IMO).
Oh, I understand what you are getting at. I just think that you’re wrong.
I’m writing local replies because fisking walls of text gets tedious very very quickly. There is no point in debating secondary effects when it’s pretty clear that the source disagreement is deeper.
I’m going to end the discussion now, unless you object. I’m willing to consider objections.
I’m stopping for a variety of reasons, some of which I talked about previously like your discussion limitations like about references. I think you don’t understand and aren’t willing to do what it takes to understand.
Huh, that shaft ended in loud screech and a clang… Let’s drop another shaft!
I don’t have to care about the infinity of theories because if they all make exactly the same predictions, I don’t care that they are different.
This is highly convenient because I am, to quote an Agent, “only human” and humans are not well set up to deal with infinities.
How do you know that without examining the specific theories?
Right, but the point is that you do not have solution at the moment and there is an infinity of theories which propose potential shovel-ready solutions. You have no basis for rejecting them because “I don’t know of a solution with a shovel”—they are new to you solutions, that’s the whole point.
Yes, of course, but you were claiming there are no such things as observations at all, merely some photons and such flying around. Being prone to errors is an entirely different question.
Predictions do not come out of nowhere. They are made by models (= imperfect representations of reality) and “entity” is just a different word for a “model”. If you don’t have any entities, what exactly generates your predictions?
I don’t find these replies very responsive. Are you trying to understand what I’m getting at, or just writing local replies to a selection of my points? This is not the first time I’ve tried to write some substantial explanation and gotten not much engagement from you (IMO).
Oh, I understand what you are getting at. I just think that you’re wrong.
I’m writing local replies because fisking walls of text gets tedious very very quickly. There is no point in debating secondary effects when it’s pretty clear that the source disagreement is deeper.
I’m going to end the discussion now, unless you object. I’m willing to consider objections.
I’m stopping for a variety of reasons, some of which I talked about previously like your discussion limitations like about references. I think you don’t understand and aren’t willing to do what it takes to understand.
If we stop and you later want to get these issues addressed, you would be welcome to post to the FI forum: http://fallibleideas.com/discussion-info
s/understand/be convinced/g and I’ll agree :-)
Was a fun ride!