komponisto comments on The Strong Occam's Razor - Less Wrong
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Why do we only care about observational predictions and not all "in principle" predictions? (Serious question, not rhetorical). My intuition is that in the first quote "Physics" and "Odin created physics" aren't in the same equivalence class because the latter makes an additional prediction: the existence of Odin. Similarly in the second quote, there are differing predictions about what is happening inside the box even if they are physically impossible to test, so I would put the two theories in different equivalence classes. I would do the same for MWI and Copenhagen quantum mechanics.
This is pure intuition on my part. I haven't had a chance to take a look at the math of K-complexity and the like, so I might just be missing something relatively basic.
A prediction that's impossible to test is a contradiction in terms. Show me any unfalsifiable theory, and I'll invent some predictions that follow from it, they will just be "impossible to test".
...and this is why Popperian falsificationism is wrong!
There aren't any "unfalsifiable" theories, though there may be unintelligible theories.
I disagree, since prediction != theory. It is certainly possible to have a theory (e.g. Freud's ideas about the ego and superego) that make no predictions. In the comment above, cousin_it is correct in that "unfalsifiable prediction" is a contradiction, but "unfalsifiable theory" is not. It just means that the theory is not well-formed and does not pay rent.
Though cousin_it will have to speak for himself, I believe he was specifically disagreeing with this when he wrote: