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iarwain1 comments on Help with understanding some non-standard-LW philosophy viewpoints - Less Wrong Discussion
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Solomonoff Induction is uncomputable, and even if you use a computable approximation, you can't calculate it because no-one's written a program to do that AFAIK.
So if you are trying to work out which hypothesis is simpler, how do you do that? You use your personal intuition.
I actually think this is plausible. The argument goes: can you imagine 2+2 equalling 3? Maybe this is a personal intuition thing, but it does feel like maths is discovered not invented. If I decided that the derivative of sin(X) is x^5, and used this maths to design an airplane, it wouldn't fly. The maths exists whether I want it to or not. In physics, the equation for the electron produced two results, and one was thrown away until the positron was discovered - the existence of the positron, which is a real, physical thing, could have been predicted by the mathematics.
This is the 'unreasonable effectiveness or mathematics'. If maths describes physics perfectly, and the electrons exist, then why don't the equations for the electrons exist to the same extent?
Now, if you buy this argument, and if chairs, tables and morality can be described in terms of maths, then maybe the platonic form of a chair exists, and maybe moral realism exists? Admittedly, this generalisation is a lot more dubious, for one thing there are probably a very large number of moral systems and chairs which can be mathematically described, so this argument is less 'there exists a perfect platonic form of a chair' and more 'there are an infinite number of platonic chairs'.
One argument is to go for broke and argue that the physical world does not exist at all. We know the mental world exists, because we have experiences, so the simplest explanation is that only the mental world exists and the physical world is an illusion. This then leads to libertarian free will.
(I don't actually buy this argument, I'm just explaining it.)
Because its higher status to believe in something 110%, even if this is gibberish? Because having unreasonable faith is good psychosomatically?
You underestimate the power of the dark side epistemology.
I was using Solomonoff Induction as an example of a system that uses Occamian priors. My question was on those who assert that they don't use Occamian priors at all, or for that matter any other type of objective prior. This usually seems to lead either to rejecting Bayesian epistemology in general or to asserting that any arbitrary prior works. I actually have no problem (in theory) rejecting Bayesian epistemology, as long as you still use some sort of probability-based reasoning.
When I referred to "personal intuitions" I meant controversial or arbitrary-sounding personal intuitions, such as "I feel there's a god" or "I feel abortion is immoral" and then using those intuitions not as some sort of evidence but as priors. I get why someone would perhaps use universal intuitions as priors, along the lines of "there exists an external material world", but why use an intuition where you know the next person over likely has a different intuition?
Your choice isn't "Statistically correct prior" versus "Arbitrary prior", your choice in the real world is between arbitrary priors and nothing at all.
I think most people just hold things like faith and emotions higher than logic and probability. Asking, say "how do you know that murder is wrong?" would, I imagine, freak out some people who aren't philosophers. The whole idea that belief in god is a matter of probability is not held by many people, and moreso with moral questions. Most people, including intelleginet, educated people, do not seem to think that any justification for political opinions is needed except 'anyone who disagrees with me is evil/stupid'.
Its actually worse than this - there are people who are deeply uncomfortable with having a notion of truth at all, because if there is a notion of truth, then some people are right and some people are wrong, and the idea that people might be wrong about something is offensive.