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As I've said, merely predictive models do not quantify over the features of reality. A weakly inductive model is simply this: the next case will be some averag

As I've said, merely predictive models do not quantify over the features of reality. A weakly inductive model is simply this: the next case will be some average of the prior cases because we assume unknown aspects of the environment will ensure it is so. An explanatory model tells you why. It says: there are planets, gravity, molecules, mountains, germs, atoms, and so on. The semantics of explanations are causal properties of reality, and their relationship. Explanations do not have "parameters" to "minimise". The universal law of gravitation is not a curve fit to data. There was never a dataset of F,M,m,r; netwon did not fit any parameters -- there are no such parameters.

naasking 2y ago
Explanations absolutely do have parameters, called premises, and we absolutely do try to minimize them. There's a whole principle about it called Occam's razor.
- mjburgess 2y ago
  Those are propositions with existential quantifications, not parameters, and we do not minimise them We use comparisons over the richness of existential commitments in theory comparison, but NOT in the creation of theories nor in their specification
  - naasking 2y ago
    These are all distinctions without a difference when analyzing theory descriptions under a unified framework, like ordering them by Kolmogorov complexity, eg. a Turing machine description is equivalent to a universal Turing machine+a suitably encoded tape.
    - mjburgess 2y ago
      Yes, indeed, at the level of abstraction in which everything is syntax without any semantics, then everything is the same. That's as content free as saying, "since the sun is ordered, and my CD collection is ordered, the sun and my CDs are the same". This "unified framework" you're talking about is just an analysis of functions over whole numbers.
      - naasking 2y ago
        Everything is not the same, but everything can be quantified and ordered by some metrics which may discard some irrelevant info, yes. I disagree that it's content-free, there is probably only syntax at a fundamental level so whatever the semantics you've created in your head, they also reduce to syntax in the end. There are little to no semantics in the standard model of particle physics after all.

naasking 2y ago

Explanations absolutely do have parameters, called premises, and we absolutely do try to minimize them. There's a whole principle about it called Occam's razor.

mjburgess 2y ago
Those are propositions with existential quantifications, not parameters, and we do not minimise them We use comparisons over the richness of existential commitments in theory comparison, but NOT in the creation of theories nor in their specification
- naasking 2y ago
  These are all distinctions without a difference when analyzing theory descriptions under a unified framework, like ordering them by Kolmogorov complexity, eg. a Turing machine description is equivalent to a universal Turing machine+a suitably encoded tape.
  - mjburgess 2y ago
    Yes, indeed, at the level of abstraction in which everything is syntax without any semantics, then everything is the same. That's as content free as saying, "since the sun is ordered, and my CD collection is ordered, the sun and my CDs are the same". This "unified framework" you're talking about is just an analysis of functions over whole numbers.
    - naasking 2y ago
      Everything is not the same, but everything can be quantified and ordered by some metrics which may discard some irrelevant info, yes. I disagree that it's content-free, there is probably only syntax at a fundamental level so whatever the semantics you've created in your head, they also reduce to syntax in the end. There are little to no semantics in the standard model of particle physics after all.