And this is just hiding the complexity, not making it simpler. Complexity isn’t a function of how many words you use, cf. “The lady down the street is a witch; she did it.” If we are writing a program that emits actual features of reality, rather than socially defined labels, the simplest program for green is simpler than the simplest program for grue or bleen. That you can also produce more complex programs that give the same results (defining green in terms of bleen and grue is only one such example) is both trivially true and irrelevant.
Wait, actually, I’d like to come back to this. What programming language are we using? If it’s one where either grue is primitive, or one where there are primitives that make grue easier to write than green, then true seems simpler than green. How do we pick which language we use?
And this is just hiding the complexity, not making it simpler. Complexity isn’t a function of how many words you use, cf. “The lady down the street is a witch; she did it.” If we are writing a program that emits actual features of reality, rather than socially defined labels, the simplest program for green is simpler than the simplest program for grue or bleen. That you can also produce more complex programs that give the same results (defining green in terms of bleen and grue is only one such example) is both trivially true and irrelevant.
Wait, actually, I’d like to come back to this. What programming language are we using? If it’s one where either grue is primitive, or one where there are primitives that make grue easier to write than green, then true seems simpler than green. How do we pick which language we use?
Agreed.