“we can keep refining our models and explain more and more inputs”
Hm.
On your account, “explaining an input” involves having a most-accurate-model (aka “real world”) which alters in response to that input in some fashion that makes the model even more accurate than it was (that is, better able to predict future inputs). Yes?
If so… does your account then not allow for entering a state where it is no longer possible to improve the predictive power of our most accurate model, such that there is no further input-explanation to be done? If it does… how is that any less limiting than the realist’s view allowing for entering a state where there is no further understanding of reality to be done?
I mean, I recognize that it’s possible to have an instrumentalist account in which no such limitative result applies, just as it’s possible to have a realist account in which no such limitative result applies. But you seem to be saying that there’s something systematically different between instrumentalist and realist accounts here, and I don’t quite see why that should be.
You make a reference a little later on to “mental blocks” that realism makes more likely, and I guess that’s another reference to the same thing, but I don’t quite see what it is that that mental block is blocking, or why an instrumentalist is not subject to equivalent mental blocks.
Does the question make sense? Is it something you can further clarify?
If so… does your account then not allow for entering a state where it is no longer possible to improve the predictive power of our most accurate model, such that there is no further input-explanation to be done?
Maybe you are reading too much into what I said. If your view is that what we try to understand is this external reality, it’s quite a small step to assuming that some day it will be understood in its entirety. This sentiment has been expressed over and over by very smart people, like the proverbial Lord Kelvin’s warning that “physics is almost done”, or Laplacian determinism. If you don’t assume that the road you travel leads to a certain destination, you can still decide that there are no more places to go as your last trail disappears, but it is by no means an obvious conclusion.
If your view is that what we try to understand is this external reality, it’s quite a small step to assuming that some day it will be understood in its entirety.
Well, OK. I certainly agree that this assumption has been made by realists historically. And while I’m not exactly sure it’s a bad thing, I’m willing to treat it as one for the sake of discussion.
That said… I still don’t quite get what the systematic value-difference is. I mean, if my view is instead that what we try to achieve is maximal model accuracy, with no reference to this external reality… then what? Is it somehow a longer step from there to assuming that some day we’ll achieve a perfectly accurate model? If so, why is that? If not, then what have I gained by switching from the goal of “understand external reality in its entirety” to the goal of “achieve a perfectly accurate model”?
If I’m following you at all, it seems you’re arguing in favor of a non-idealist position much more than a non-realist position. That is, if it’s a mistake to “assume that the road you travel leads to a certain destination”, it follows that I should detach from “ultimate”-type goals more generally, whether it’s a realist’s goal of ultimately understanding external reality, or an instrumentalist’s goal of ultimately achieving maximal model accuracy, or some other ontology’s goal of ultimately doing something else.
Have I missed a turn somewhere? Or is instrumentalism somehow better suited to discouraging me from idealism than realism is? Or something else?
Look, I don’t know if I can add much more. What started my deconversion from realism is watching smart people argue about interpretations of QM, Boltzmann brains and other untestable ontologies. After a while these debates started to seem silly to me, so I had to figure out why. Additionally, I wanted to distill the minimum ontology, something which needn’t be a subject of pointless argument, but only of experimental checking. Eventually I decided that external reality is just an assumption, like any other. This seems to work for me, and saves me a lot of worrying about untestables. Most physicists follow this pragmatic approach, except for a few tenured dudes who can afford to speculate on any topic they like. Max Tegmark and Don Page are more or less famous examples. But few physicists worry about formalizing their ontology of pragmatism. They follow the standard meaning of the terms exist, real, true, etc., and when these terms lead to untestable speculations, their pragmatism takes over and they lose interest, except maybe for some idle chat over a beer. A fine example of compartmentalization. I’ve been trying to decompartmentalize and see where the pragmatic approach leads, and my interpretation of the instrumentalism is the current outcome. It lets me to spot early many statements implications of which a pragmatist would eventually ignore, which is quite satisfying. I am not saying that I have finally worked out the One True Ontology, or that I have resolved every issue to my satisfaction, but it’s the best I’ve been able to cobble together. But I am not willing to trade it for a highly compartmentalized version of realism, or the Eliezerish version of many untestable worlds and timeless this or that. YMMV.
Hm.
On your account, “explaining an input” involves having a most-accurate-model (aka “real world”) which alters in response to that input in some fashion that makes the model even more accurate than it was (that is, better able to predict future inputs). Yes?
If so… does your account then not allow for entering a state where it is no longer possible to improve the predictive power of our most accurate model, such that there is no further input-explanation to be done? If it does… how is that any less limiting than the realist’s view allowing for entering a state where there is no further understanding of reality to be done?
I mean, I recognize that it’s possible to have an instrumentalist account in which no such limitative result applies, just as it’s possible to have a realist account in which no such limitative result applies. But you seem to be saying that there’s something systematically different between instrumentalist and realist accounts here, and I don’t quite see why that should be.
You make a reference a little later on to “mental blocks” that realism makes more likely, and I guess that’s another reference to the same thing, but I don’t quite see what it is that that mental block is blocking, or why an instrumentalist is not subject to equivalent mental blocks.
Does the question make sense? Is it something you can further clarify?
Maybe you are reading too much into what I said. If your view is that what we try to understand is this external reality, it’s quite a small step to assuming that some day it will be understood in its entirety. This sentiment has been expressed over and over by very smart people, like the proverbial Lord Kelvin’s warning that “physics is almost done”, or Laplacian determinism. If you don’t assume that the road you travel leads to a certain destination, you can still decide that there are no more places to go as your last trail disappears, but it is by no means an obvious conclusion.
Well, OK.
I certainly agree that this assumption has been made by realists historically.
And while I’m not exactly sure it’s a bad thing, I’m willing to treat it as one for the sake of discussion.
That said… I still don’t quite get what the systematic value-difference is.
I mean, if my view is instead that what we try to achieve is maximal model accuracy, with no reference to this external reality… then what? Is it somehow a longer step from there to assuming that some day we’ll achieve a perfectly accurate model?
If so, why is that?
If not, then what have I gained by switching from the goal of “understand external reality in its entirety” to the goal of “achieve a perfectly accurate model”?
If I’m following you at all, it seems you’re arguing in favor of a non-idealist position much more than a non-realist position. That is, if it’s a mistake to “assume that the road you travel leads to a certain destination”, it follows that I should detach from “ultimate”-type goals more generally, whether it’s a realist’s goal of ultimately understanding external reality, or an instrumentalist’s goal of ultimately achieving maximal model accuracy, or some other ontology’s goal of ultimately doing something else.
Have I missed a turn somewhere?
Or is instrumentalism somehow better suited to discouraging me from idealism than realism is?
Or something else?
Look, I don’t know if I can add much more. What started my deconversion from realism is watching smart people argue about interpretations of QM, Boltzmann brains and other untestable ontologies. After a while these debates started to seem silly to me, so I had to figure out why. Additionally, I wanted to distill the minimum ontology, something which needn’t be a subject of pointless argument, but only of experimental checking. Eventually I decided that external reality is just an assumption, like any other. This seems to work for me, and saves me a lot of worrying about untestables. Most physicists follow this pragmatic approach, except for a few tenured dudes who can afford to speculate on any topic they like. Max Tegmark and Don Page are more or less famous examples. But few physicists worry about formalizing their ontology of pragmatism. They follow the standard meaning of the terms exist, real, true, etc., and when these terms lead to untestable speculations, their pragmatism takes over and they lose interest, except maybe for some idle chat over a beer. A fine example of compartmentalization. I’ve been trying to decompartmentalize and see where the pragmatic approach leads, and my interpretation of the instrumentalism is the current outcome. It lets me to spot early many statements implications of which a pragmatist would eventually ignore, which is quite satisfying. I am not saying that I have finally worked out the One True Ontology, or that I have resolved every issue to my satisfaction, but it’s the best I’ve been able to cobble together. But I am not willing to trade it for a highly compartmentalized version of realism, or the Eliezerish version of many untestable worlds and timeless this or that. YMMV.
(shrug) OK, I’m content to leave this here, then. Thanks for your time.
So...what is the point of caring about prediction?