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From: myers@tybalt.caltech.edu (Bob Myers)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Simplicity and truth (was: Re: Science and Aesthetics)
Message-ID: <3750@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Tue, 25-Aug-87 03:08:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: cit-vax.3750
Posted: Tue Aug 25 03:08:40 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Aug-87 04:43:28 EDT
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Reply-To: myers@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Bob Myers)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
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Keywords: simplicity elegance beauty truth ockham's razor

In article <20271@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> kube@cogsci.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Paul Kube) writes:
>cf.  Hartry Field's _Science without Numbers_).  But some people
>(maybe Ockham himself) wanted to say that one should always pick the
>simpler theory *because it's more likely to be true*, and I have
>been wondering what reasons there are for believing *that*.

Are we still talking about scientific theories? What does it mean
to say that a scientific theory is more likely to be true?

Do you mean more likely to fit observation, over a wider range
of phenomena? That's the only possible explanation I can see.

As I've said, I think it is a mistake to use the word "true" with
respect to science. It has too many absolute connotations that
science just doesn't deal with.

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Bob Myers                                         myers@tybalt.caltech.edu
			 {rutgers,amdahl}!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!myers