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>the same way your car or your day job are illusions But what work is calling these things illusions doing for you? That they're not fundamental units of the f

>the same way your car or your day job are illusions But what work is calling these things illusions doing for you? That they're not fundamental units of the furniture of the universe doesn't mean they don't exist or play necessary causal or explanatory roles.

naasking 7y ago
> But what work is calling these things illusions doing for you? It serves to help distinguish that which is reducible to more fundamental ontological entities, from that which is irreducible and thus ontologically fundamental. I agree that these concepts certainly fulfill useful causal and explanatory roles. Whether they are "necessary" has some room for debate.
- sonusario 7y ago
  How do we know when we have arrived at something that is irreducible?
  - naasking 7y ago
    In a similar manner in which we settle on the primitives of physics theories: parsimony in explaining the available data.
    - sonusario 7y ago
      What about "parsimony in explaining the available data" indicates that it is irreducible though?
      - naasking 7y ago
        Every theory posits some axioms. These are irreducible by definition. The challenge is choosing which axiomatic basis we ought to prefer given our incomplete information. This is answered by induction [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_inductive_inference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_induc...
        sonusario 7y ago
        So, is this to say we approach the irreducible best with induction?
        david_w 7y ago
        What you're describing is "the best way to do science, so we can make some progress". That's all well and good but what other people are talking about is the nature of reality which, in pursuit of, those crazy people, they are perfectly willing to doubt axioms. As well they should and as is their right since a set of axioms are effectively ground facts which are selected to make logical reasoning across a domain possible, nothing more. That doesn't make them true in the big sense of True, it makes them expedient, productive of theory, generative, a lot of wonderful things, maybe even strongly implied by all evidence, but not apriori true. They're dubitable.
        naasking 7y ago
        > That's all well and good but what other people are talking about is the nature of reality which, in pursuit of, those crazy people, they are perfectly willing to doubt axioms. Solomonoff induction does doubt and change axioms. It's a fundamental part of the whole process in fact. > That doesn't make them true in the big sense of True, it makes them expedient, productive of theory, generative, a lot of wonderful things, maybe even strongly implied by all evidence, but not apriori true. They're dubitable. Logic is used to make distinctions. Two theories with differing axiomatic bases will make different distinctions, but if they make the same predictions in all cases, then they are logically the same, ie. there is a fundamental isomorphism between them. In this case, it literally doesn't matter if one is "actually really true", and the other is a mathematical dual of some sort. For instance, polar and Cartesian coordinates are completely equivalent. A theory cast in one might be easier for us to work with, but even if reality really used the other coordinate system, it quite literally doesn't matter. In the case when the two theories do differ in their predictions, we should epistemically prefer one over the other, and Solomonoff Induction shows us how to do this rigourously.
        david_w 7y ago

naasking 7y ago

> But what work is calling these things illusions doing for you? It serves to help distinguish that which is reducible to more fundamental ontological entities, from that which is irreducible and thus ontologically fundamental. I agree that these concepts certainly fulfill useful causal and explanatory roles. Whether they are "necessary" has some room for debate.

sonusario 7y ago
How do we know when we have arrived at something that is irreducible?
- naasking 7y ago
  In a similar manner in which we settle on the primitives of physics theories: parsimony in explaining the available data.
  - sonusario 7y ago
    What about "parsimony in explaining the available data" indicates that it is irreducible though?
    - naasking 7y ago
      Every theory posits some axioms. These are irreducible by definition. The challenge is choosing which axiomatic basis we ought to prefer given our incomplete information. This is answered by induction [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_inductive_inference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_induc...
      - sonusario 7y ago
        So, is this to say we approach the irreducible best with induction?
      - david_w 7y ago
        What you're describing is "the best way to do science, so we can make some progress". That's all well and good but what other people are talking about is the nature of reality which, in pursuit of, those crazy people, they are perfectly willing to doubt axioms. As well they should and as is their right since a set of axioms are effectively ground facts which are selected to make logical reasoning across a domain possible, nothing more. That doesn't make them true in the big sense of True, it makes them expedient, productive of theory, generative, a lot of wonderful things, maybe even strongly implied by all evidence, but not apriori true. They're dubitable.
        naasking 7y ago
        > That's all well and good but what other people are talking about is the nature of reality which, in pursuit of, those crazy people, they are perfectly willing to doubt axioms. Solomonoff induction does doubt and change axioms. It's a fundamental part of the whole process in fact. > That doesn't make them true in the big sense of True, it makes them expedient, productive of theory, generative, a lot of wonderful things, maybe even strongly implied by all evidence, but not apriori true. They're dubitable. Logic is used to make distinctions. Two theories with differing axiomatic bases will make different distinctions, but if they make the same predictions in all cases, then they are logically the same, ie. there is a fundamental isomorphism between them. In this case, it literally doesn't matter if one is "actually really true", and the other is a mathematical dual of some sort. For instance, polar and Cartesian coordinates are completely equivalent. A theory cast in one might be easier for us to work with, but even if reality really used the other coordinate system, it quite literally doesn't matter. In the case when the two theories do differ in their predictions, we should epistemically prefer one over the other, and Solomonoff Induction shows us how to do this rigourously.
        david_w 7y ago