On Dec 19, 2008, at 7:01 PM, Ben Goertzel wrote:
Yes, you can work around it by assuming Occam's Razor as a sort of primal religious principle ... but then you're making a big assumption pulled out of the glorious subjective nothing ... which is fine, but you should acknowledge that's what you're doing...
I do acknowledge this readily; I often have to disabuse people of the notion that I believe much of anything in an absolute sense. I'm not a big believer in absolute truth, but if I have to accept some axioms as a creedal minimalist, I will provisionally start with mathematics since everything else useful seems to follow from there and I need to get work done. Provisional in the sense that I only accept those axioms as long as they remain unreasonably effective.
If there is some other base assumption that is similarly simple and works better, I would happily entertain it. I just am not aware of one though that may reflect my limited experience.
Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
