According to Lewis, the laws of nature correspond to the axioms of the deductive system that best balances simplicity and strength. He does not provide a precise algorithm for evaluating this balance, and I don’t think his proposal should be read as an attempt at a technically precise decision procedure for lawhood anyway.
I guess I would say that MML is one way of precisifying the general Lewisian view. But yeah, it’s the same sort of idea, except Lewis’s view is intended as an account of what laws of nature are, rather than a scheme for model selection. The plausibility of the view, of course, stems from the fact that model selection (and therefore law discovery) in science seems to follow the sort of criteria he describes.
This is just minimum message length.
I guess I would say that MML is one way of precisifying the general Lewisian view. But yeah, it’s the same sort of idea, except Lewis’s view is intended as an account of what laws of nature are, rather than a scheme for model selection. The plausibility of the view, of course, stems from the fact that model selection (and therefore law discovery) in science seems to follow the sort of criteria he describes.