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

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

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 November 2010 07:04:00PM *  4 points [-]

Never mind usefulness, it seems to me that "Evolution by natural selection occurs" and "God made the world and everything in it, but did so in such a way as to make it look exactly as if evolution by natural selection occured" are not the same hypothesis, that one of them is true and one of them is false, that it is simplicity that leads us to say which is which, and that we do, indeed, prefer the simpler of two theories that make the same predictions, rather than calling them the same theory.

Comment author: cousin_it 10 November 2010 08:37:01PM *  2 points [-]

While my post was pretty misguided (I even wrote an apology for it), your comment looks even more misguided to me. In effect, you're saying that between Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, at most one can be "true". And you're also saying that which of them is "true" depends on the programming language we use to encode them. Are you sure you want to go there?

Comment author: JGWeissman 10 November 2010 08:54:40PM 2 points [-]

In effect, you're saying that between Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, at most one can be "true".

We may even be able to observe which one. Actually, I am pretty sure that if I looked closely at QM and these two formulations, I would go with Hamiltonian mechanics.

Comment author: cousin_it 11 November 2010 01:35:07AM *  2 points [-]

Ah, but which Hamiltonian mechanics is the true one: the one that says real numbers are infinite binary expansions, or the one that says real numbers are Dedekind cuts? I dunno, your way of thinking makes me queasy.