= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Lumifer comments on Is simplicity truth indicative? - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (45)
Occam's Razor is a heuristic, that is, a convenient rule of thumb that usually gives acceptable results. It is not a law of nature or a theorem of mathematics (no, not an axiom either). It basically tells you what humans are likely to find more useful. It does not tell you -- and does not even pretend to tell you -- what is more likely to be true.
But humans define "likely" in part via considerations of simplicity. This doesn't guarantee that the long run average of percentage correct conclusions will decline with complexity. But it makes it more likely.
Whether a hypothesis turns out to be a better match for reality than another hypothesis does not depend on how humans define "likely".