Is Eliezer strawmanning positivism here? He says that all statements are defined by experimental predictions in positivism, but positivism also leaves room for logical deductions. So you could end up with empirical statements far removed from any observation. The statement, “Chocolate cakes rarely materialize spontaneously,” constrains future observation. But from that it follows that the odds of a cake just now materializing in the center of the sun are low. Because to say that something happens rarely, is to say that there is a low probability of it happening at any given time and place.
Or does logical positivism also forbid generalizations of that kind?
It also seems that any accurate model, predicting what we can expect from the sun in the future, would, as a side effect, predict how likely it is for cakes to form. For example, our model of the sun is based on the theory that it’s made of matter like we find on earth, playing by the same rules.
Hello, everyone.
Recent college grad here from the Madison area. I’ve been aware of this site for years, but started taking it seriously when I stumbled upon it a few months ago, researching evidential (vs causal) decision theory. I realized that this community seriously discusses the stuff I care about—that really abstract, high-minded stuff about truth, reality, and decisions. I’m a math person, so I’m more interested in the theoretical, algorithmic side of this. I’ve been a rationalist since, at 15, I realized my religion was bunk, and decided I needed to know what else I was wrong about.