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From: kube@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Paul Kube)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Science and Aesthetics
Message-ID: <20070@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Tue, 11-Aug-87 19:26:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.20070
Posted: Tue Aug 11 19:26:31 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Aug-87 06:38:20 EDT
References: <120@snark.UUCP> <86@thirdi.UUCP> <8707@ut-sally.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: kube@cogsci.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Paul Kube)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 20
Keywords: elegance beauty truth

In article <8707@ut-sally.UUCP> turpin@ut-sally.UUCP (Russell Turpin) writes:
>Both of these criteria for elegance, namely parsimony of
>assumptions and preference for general principles of symmetry or
>invariance over the introduction of new forces, can strongly be
>argued for on philosophical grounds. In short, scientists call
>theories beautiful because they are more true, or at least, less
>wrong. 

I find this paragraph a bit hard to parse, but if you're saying you
know of strong philosophical arguments for simplicity or elegance of
theories being diagnostic of truth, let's hear 'em.  People do tend to
prefer simple theories, other things being equal; but there are
reasons they may have for prefering the simpler theory other than that
they think it stands a better chance of being true.  For example,
someone might find the simpler theory easier to understand, or easier
to use to make predictions, or more pleasing to contemplate.  I can
imagine strong arguments for supposing that these kinds of properties
of theories are correlated with simplicity.  But *truth*?

--Paul kube@berkeley.edu, ...!ucbvax!kube