the fact that we agree that there is something to the concept of “97% true” just means that there is still more to be done
My point is, specifically, that being overly reductionist has made it harder for people to do that work, because they keep focusing on atomic propositions, about which claims like “97% true” are much less natural.
For your second example, I would say it’s a success of reductionist epistemology
In this case, Solomonoff induction is less reductionist than the alternative, because it postulates hypotheses over the whole world (aka things like laws of physics), rather than individual claims about it (like “these billiard balls will collide”).
I don’t think it’s quite as obvious ex ante as you seem to think that it was destined to fail
Oh yeah, I don’t think it was obvious ex ante. But insofar as it seems like reductionism about epistemology fails more often than reductionism about other things, that seems useful to know.
reductionist epistemology is concerned with the case where we have a confusing set of observations, and says “let’s assume our current concepts are high-level concepts, and invent a set of low-level concepts + rules that explain the high-level concepts” (e.g. atoms invented to explain various chemical reactions, genes invented to explain the Mendelian pattern, Bayesianism invented to explain various aspects of “good reasoning”).
In hindsight I should have said “reductionism about epistemology”, since I’m only talking about applying reductionism to epistemology itself, not the epistemological strategy of applying reductionism to some other domain. I’ve changed the title to clarify, as well as talking about “some limitations” of it rather than being against the thing overall.
My point is, specifically, that being overly reductionist has made it harder for people to do that work, because they keep focusing on atomic propositions, about which claims like “97% true” are much less natural.
In this case, Solomonoff induction is less reductionist than the alternative, because it postulates hypotheses over the whole world (aka things like laws of physics), rather than individual claims about it (like “these billiard balls will collide”).
Oh yeah, I don’t think it was obvious ex ante. But insofar as it seems like reductionism about epistemology fails more often than reductionism about other things, that seems useful to know.
In hindsight I should have said “reductionism about epistemology”, since I’m only talking about applying reductionism to epistemology itself, not the epistemological strategy of applying reductionism to some other domain. I’ve changed the title to clarify, as well as talking about “some limitations” of it rather than being against the thing overall.
Ah, I’m much more on board with “reductionism about epistemology” having had limited success, that makes sense.