[ExI] The "Unreasonable" Effectiveness of Mathematics in theNatural Sciences

Jef Allbright jef at jefallbright.net
Mon Sep 29 21:12:19 UTC 2008


On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 2:06 PM, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 1:50 PM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ... I simply assume that the
>> "heliocentric" view is simply a much simpler, more elegant and more
>> Occam-compliant way to describe our portion of the universe.
>
> Isn't the "more Occam-compliant way", simpler and more elegant, the
> now common scientific view that there is /no/ such privileged position
> or portion of the universe?

I should added that the heuristic is not in favor of the "simplest"
theory in terms of, for example, description length, but roughly put,
in favor of the theory which explains more while assuming less in the
way of ontological infrastructure.

- Jef



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