My Thoughts on Science (& a Bit on Religion, too)

[ericjherboso]

I always have such a tough time explaining how I think to other people. No one ever seems to be able to follow my train of thought no matter how hard I try to explain myself, and I consistently end up thinking that maybe there's some part of me that is crazy in a way that is obvious to others but is completely invisible to me

Comments

Re: Occam's Razor

[ericjherboso]

As an example that goes straight to your heliocentrism example, consider the ideas on star movement that were considered before using a central sun idea. There's a rather interesting finding that showed that if you make a sphere of a certain diameter around the earth, and then inscribe it by a euclidean solid, which is itself circumscribed by another sphere, and so on, until each of the five euclidean solids are used in a certain order (descending, I think? I can't remember...) then those are the spheres by which you can make a system of spheres rotating evenly within spheres that to a great degree of accuracy shows the motion of the then known planets.

You might say that this is a rather complex procedure, but it is all a matter of perspective. Can you imagine how simple an explanation this was? It used the five fundamental solids in a compelling and easy to understand way: through alternating inscription/circumscription, and derived the movement of stars from it!

I admit that the use of simplicity in math has led to many discoveries. But we only have one set of data points: the data where we used simple math to make those discoveries. Who is to say that we would not have made other discoveries (or even the same ones) if we had used different models? It is easy to proclaim that occam's razor has an impressive record of leading science to new and better understanding. But saying that is no different than the absurd parapsychologist who uses insufficient data to try and prove that telepathy exists. We simply haven't the necessary data to come to ANY conclusion about occam's razor. And without the necessary data, the only argument left to defend occam's razor is the fact that it seems the simplest explanation of the facts we have before us. I'm sure you see the irony of that.

In conclusion, I want to firmly say that I agree with your final paragraph. Our contention is not that we put different value on accurate prediction, but that when you point to accurate prediction coming through occam's razor, I see a possibility of confirmation bias occurring. My contention is that using more complex models would give about the same levels of accuracy in prediction, minus the accuracy loss from human brains being less capable of utilizing more complex models to explain reality.