I am so sorry. Where I erred was to get ‘first’ and ‘second’ the wrong way round. I think we agree about most things, and I am going to change my parent comment so that it says what I meant when I wrote it.
But we still disagree about poetic hypotheses. I think that simple explanations are extra-worth looking at because they are simple.
That doesn’t mean they’re right. Explanatory power and prediction and experiment are the only judge of that.
But you should look very carefully at the simple beautiful ideas that seem to explain everything, but that look untrue.
Firstly because Solomonoff induction looks like a good way to think about the world.
Secondly because all the good ideas have turned out to be simple, and could have been spotted, (and often were) by the Ancient Greeks if only they’d really thought about it.
Thirdly because experiments not done with the hypothesis in mind have likely neglected important aspects of the problem. (In this case T3 homeostasis and possible peripheral resistance and the difference between basal metabolic rate and waking rate, and the difference between core and peripheral temperature and the possibility of a common DIO2 mutation causing people’s systems to react differently to T4 monotherapy)
Good ideas should be given extra-benefit of doubt. Not ignored because they prove too much!
Actually I think all that is worth adding to the main post, so thank you very much!
I am so sorry. Where I erred was to get ‘first’ and ‘second’ the wrong way round. I think we agree about most things, and I am going to change my parent comment so that it says what I meant when I wrote it.
But we still disagree about poetic hypotheses. I think that simple explanations are extra-worth looking at because they are simple.
That doesn’t mean they’re right. Explanatory power and prediction and experiment are the only judge of that.
But you should look very carefully at the simple beautiful ideas that seem to explain everything, but that look untrue.
Firstly because Solomonoff induction looks like a good way to think about the world.
Secondly because all the good ideas have turned out to be simple, and could have been spotted, (and often were) by the Ancient Greeks if only they’d really thought about it.
Thirdly because experiments not done with the hypothesis in mind have likely neglected important aspects of the problem. (In this case T3 homeostasis and possible peripheral resistance and the difference between basal metabolic rate and waking rate, and the difference between core and peripheral temperature and the possibility of a common DIO2 mutation causing people’s systems to react differently to T4 monotherapy)
Good ideas should be given extra-benefit of doubt. Not ignored because they prove too much!
Actually I think all that is worth adding to the main post, so thank you very much!