byrnema comments on A note on the description complexity of physical theories - Less Wrong

19 Post author: cousin_it 09 November 2010 04:25PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (177)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: byrnema 09 November 2010 11:23:55PM *  2 points [-]

we should choose the simpler one

Why do you use the adjective 'simpler'? I understand that this isn't just you, but the common term for this context. But we really mean 'more probable', correct? In which case, why don't we just say, 'more probable'?

I'm not sure what 'simpler' means but I don't think the relationship between 'simple' and 'probable' is straight-forward -- except when the more complex thing is a subset of the more simple thing. That is, in the usual provided example that A∩B is more probable than A∩B∩C.

Comment author: JamesAndrix 10 November 2010 06:55:33AM 1 point [-]

Simpler is not always more probable, it's just something with which to build your priors.

If you have two theories that make different but similar predictions of noisy data, the one that fits the data better might be the more probable, even if it's vastly more complex.