FAITH... WITH REASON

FAITH... WITH REASON Mar 3, 2017 17:51:07 GMT

Quote

Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 3, 2017 17:51:07 GMT

Mar 3, 2017 10:31:03 GMT fatpaul said:

Mar 1, 2017 19:41:12 GMT Eva Yojimbo said:

RE the invariant laws of physics: in the abstract, I'd say this is something that can be assumed due to Occam's Razor a priori of any evidence. A variant universe would be innately more complex as you'd have to have multiple sets of laws occurring either at different times (in that they change) or different places. Invariant laws would mean one set would apply everywhere at all times.

Now, the thing with Occam's Razor is that it doesn't give you proof of anything, all it does is tell you that the more complex hypothesis requires evidence in order to favor it over the simpler one. Plus, as cham went on to explain, we actually DO have evidence that the laws existed far away a long time ago into the past. So all the evidence we DO have is for invariable laws and none for variant

Appealing to parsimony is a bias for simplicity in theory construction encapsulated in Ockham's razor: entities must not be posited beyond necessity. It is a tendency for simplicity in us, not necessarily a tendency of the universe itself.

This is incorrect. Occam has been formalized via Solomonoff Induction, which is a bit too complex to fully explain in this post, but to reference the most relevant parts: part of Solomonoff is Kolmogorov or Computational Complexity; which basically says that anything that exists can be modeled in binary, and the length of code needed to describe it is roughly equivalent to the level of complexity. Solomonoff is a means of inductively finding all the possible hypotheses that can explain the data, and because of Kolmogorov priorites are given to simpler hypotheses. You can also find plenty of real-world examples of how Occam works mathematically. The Conjunction Fallacy is a classic example: A+B can never be more likely than A or B alone.

However, one important lesson that Kolmogorov Complexity teaches us is that ontological simplicity/complexity is different from our intuitive sense of simplicity/complexity. There are plenty of things that seem simple or complex to us that, if described formally, are the opposite. Maxwell's equations seem complex; Thor seems simple; but the former is far easier to program into a computer to produce the outcome "lightning."

Still, the general point is that simpler models are innately, mathematically more likely to be correct. Much of the reason can be explained by the conjunction fallacy since the more complex a hypothesis the more chances it has of being wrong.

It is a fact that light speed is a constant that enables spatial and temporal information about the laws and I know that light itself has no frame of reference which implies invariance, but what I don't know is if the speed of light has always been a constant. I also don't know if cham's mentioned method (spectroscopy I think) is done within a metric of GR. If this is the case, then it may be somewhat circular.

I don't think if there's anyway to prove that something has always been a constant. That's why I brought up Occam as a means of pointing out that variance requires greater complexity which is innately less likely to be true and requires more evidence in order to overcome that.