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From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Layman's argument for Occam's razor
Message-ID: <3464@venera.isi.edu>
Date: Tue, 25-Aug-87 10:30:36 EDT
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Posted: Tue Aug 25 10:30:36 1987
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References: <433@morgoth.UUCP> <3733@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
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In article <3733@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> myers@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Bob Myers) writes:
>
>I really don't think that science deals with "Truth" or "right"ness.
>It does deal with accuracy and explanatory power. Explanatory power
>has two halves: simplicity, so we can understand it, and generality,
>so it covers more than a narrow range of phenomena.
>
I think it may be useful to recall Marvin Minsky's definition of the term
"model:"

	To an observer B, an object A* is a model of an object A
	to the extent that B can use A* to answer questions that
	interest him about A.

Thus, we may say that science is concerned with the development of models
which answer questions about different bodies of phenomena, and such models
are generally called theories.  However, the important part of Minsky's
definition which is often overlooked is that part about "questions that
interest him."  Not only is it necessary to scope out the particular body
of phenomena which are under study (A);  but also one must scope out the
nature of the questions one wishes to pose about those phenomena.  Indeed,
one way of looking at Kuhn's paradigm shift is that it entails a major change
in the nature of the questions being posed.