Of course, nothing stops us from arguing with each other about the best decision theory but those disagreements are more like debates about what’s the best programming language than disagreements about the chemical structure of Benzene.
A better comparison is to, in the absence of modern chemistry, thinking about what the best ontology is for thinking about physical materials, and how to make useful physical materials.
Before the discovery of modern chemical theories (the elements, molecules, etc), people had folk concepts of what materials are. They had different ways of thinking about and working with them (e.g. the classical elements, metalworking, distillation, cooking, alchemy).
To them it might have seemed that there was no best ontology for thinking about physical materials; there are different models that explain different phenomena and are practical in different contexts, but no overarching theory to rule them all. And that’s true to some degree. Even after the discovery of modern chemistry, we still haven’t figured out the best way to think about and work with all possible materials (as evidenced by the fact that materials science is still a live field, and nanotechnology is not a thing yet). But, modern chemistry constituted the discovery of an extremely useful and precise abstraction for modelling physical materials which revolutionized the field. There is no comparison between the accuracy/usefulness of those ontologies that came before modern chemistry and those that came after.
Is there reason to expect the field of decision theory to be similar to the field of chemistry? Decision theory has seen a great deal of progress throughout history, with the discovery of probability theory, VNM utility theory, Nash equilibrium, and so on. These abstractions are pervasive throughout the field and are extremely useful in thinking through decision problems, indicating that something similar to the invention of modern chemistry has already happened in the field of decision theory. The question is, is there reason to expect that there are more of such abstractions that have not been discovered yet? I think, based on the level of current confusion and the amount of recent progress (e.g. UDT, proof-based UDT, reflective oracles, logical inductors, COEDT), the answer is “hell yes”.
Chemistry didn’t solve ontology, it passed the buck to physics. We don’t know whether the correct ontology of physics is fields, particles , waves, pure information, etc.
A better comparison is to, in the absence of modern chemistry, thinking about what the best ontology is for thinking about physical materials, and how to make useful physical materials.
Before the discovery of modern chemical theories (the elements, molecules, etc), people had folk concepts of what materials are. They had different ways of thinking about and working with them (e.g. the classical elements, metalworking, distillation, cooking, alchemy).
To them it might have seemed that there was no best ontology for thinking about physical materials; there are different models that explain different phenomena and are practical in different contexts, but no overarching theory to rule them all. And that’s true to some degree. Even after the discovery of modern chemistry, we still haven’t figured out the best way to think about and work with all possible materials (as evidenced by the fact that materials science is still a live field, and nanotechnology is not a thing yet). But, modern chemistry constituted the discovery of an extremely useful and precise abstraction for modelling physical materials which revolutionized the field. There is no comparison between the accuracy/usefulness of those ontologies that came before modern chemistry and those that came after.
Is there reason to expect the field of decision theory to be similar to the field of chemistry? Decision theory has seen a great deal of progress throughout history, with the discovery of probability theory, VNM utility theory, Nash equilibrium, and so on. These abstractions are pervasive throughout the field and are extremely useful in thinking through decision problems, indicating that something similar to the invention of modern chemistry has already happened in the field of decision theory. The question is, is there reason to expect that there are more of such abstractions that have not been discovered yet? I think, based on the level of current confusion and the amount of recent progress (e.g. UDT, proof-based UDT, reflective oracles, logical inductors, COEDT), the answer is “hell yes”.
Chemistry didn’t solve ontology, it passed the buck to physics. We don’t know whether the correct ontology of physics is fields, particles , waves, pure information, etc.