FAITH... WITH REASON

As brilliant a comment as you ever muster.  


I never claimed that, liar Allaby. May you rot in an old folk's home for the last 45 years of your life, and have to listen to 'elevator music' and eat tasteless food for invalids, and never have sex again.

 Nice chatting with you, reprobate.


Faecal freaks? I like it!
He is risen indeed!

Whisper kitten, I can't help it you were cowed into posting a chubby-cheeked Mennonite-looking putz.   You guys can go off on Kyle Gass all day long, I'm pretty sure you're hurting his feelings real bad.

First sentence is correct. I don't know what you mean by the bolded part. 

Again you're confusing me. SI is a mathematical proof for Occam. Since SI is a method for finding hypothesis to explain empirical data (ie, reality), then the proof would mean that simpler explanations of that reality are more likely; ergo an ontological principle.  I gave an example with the conjunction fallacy: the probability of A+B can never be greater than A or B alone. If we're talking about variable VS invariable laws, then with the latter we have A (the invariable laws that apply everywhere), while with the former we'd have A+B (plus perhaps many more). There's no way the invariable hypothesis can be more likely sans evidence.

Occam is also a heuristic technique, yes, but this does not prevent it from also being an ontological principle. In this case, it happens to be both. In fact, science chose it as a heuristic because it seemed to map well to reality. SI was just proof that it did. 

It's also worth pointing out the "probability is in the mind" aspect of this. What we're really talking about isn't just reality, but hypotheses to explain reality. When dealing with hypotheses you ARE dealing with the mind because it's essentially the mind that's attempting to map reality. In constructing a hypothesis, every additional element you add has a probability of being wrong, and the more you add, the more the joint probabilities lowers the collective probability of the hypothesis. This is essentially what SI shows in a very rigorous manner, since all binary data adds 1-bit to a hypothesis that's either true/false (50/50). The more you add, the more that you need to be correct. You can think of it like a coin-flip: the sequence HHTTH will always be more likely than HTTHTH merely by virtue of the former being shorter/simpler. This is SI in a nutshell, and it supports the principle of Occam. 

One of the fundamental principles of logic is that the propositions must be assumed and can't be proven within the framework of the formulated argument. One of the fundamental problems of philosophy is how to determine what premises to assume to begin with. However, I'd argue that we do not have to take principles on faith. Rather, I think there's a recursive relationship between rationality and empiricism. In particular, we can make assumptions, test their consequences, and if they match the empirical results then that's evidence that the assumptions are true. If you take math as an example, the peano axioms are assumed but not proven; we continue to assume them because they seem to accurately model reality (ie, they match our empirical experiences). I would say that Occam is much the same way, and we assume it on the same principles by which we assume mathematical axioms. 

I do realize there are some realist problems with the notion of simplicity. Even within the realm of computational complexity much depends on what language we choose. Using binary is one way to try to get around this, since binary is universal and the simplest language possible (you can't create a language simpler than one that relies on true/false). That may ultimately prove impractical, but I'm just speaking in principle here. For some things, however, we needn't bother with these gray areas of simplicity/complexity: I keep using it as an example, but the conjunction fallacy applies no matter what language we choose or how we define complexity/simplicity, and the variant/variant distinction is a pretty straight-forward example of it. 

RE your second paragraph: In philosophy, metaphysics doesn't mean "beyond the physical," but just refers to whatever is--all the notions surrounding being. If there is something beyond the physical, this would fall under metaphysics; but the existence of atoms fall under the category of metaphysics as well. Most rationalists don't bother with metaphysics since we recognize that ultimately what we're concerned with is making it so our models--perceptions of how reality functions--matches our phenomenal experience of reality. If they do, we don't see much point in questioning it beyond that point since it just turns into intellectual masturbation with no experiential consequences. So when I say that Occam is an "ontological principle" I'm saying that in the sense that I (and other) conflate our empirical experience of reality with reality itself, so that it's a principle of our map-making abilities. The same way you might say when looking at a tree that "the tree exists" without going through the rigmarole of saying "I'm experiencing my visual cortex's interpretation and reconstruction of photons that are bouncing off an object that may or may not exist beyond by perception in the form that I call a tree." 

Here's a good read on the subjective of recursive justification: lesswrong.com/lw/s0/where_recursive_justification_hits_bottom/

Well, this is what I asked you earlier. To me, someone can jump having "complete trust" they'll be caught, or they can jump having doubts they'll be caught but deciding that the rewards outweigh the risks. So it seems someone can ignore the doubts entirely that they'll be caught and have "faith" ("complete trust"), or decide the doubts aren't enough to prevent action and have "faith" ("enough trust"). I do think there's a cognitive difference between faith as "complete trust" and faith as "enough trust." The latter can be wholly supported by evidence and reason; the former can't. 

This goes back to what I said about evidence not being able to justify "complete confidence" (which I take to mean "certainty") in something. If you try to exclude or ignore doubts in order to have "complete confidence" then I'd say you have "faith" in the "complete confidence" sense. If you're just allowing evidence/reason to take you to the point it takes and you deem that enough confidence to act, then you only have faith in the "enough confidence" sense. I think these two senses are distinct but have been conflated throughout this thread. 

I agree. If you find fake money, that doesn't mean all money is fake. Same with paranormal activity, imo.