From: Philip Sutton (Philip.Sutton@green-innovations.asn.au)
Date: Wed Jun 02 2004 - 11:30:32 MDT
Eliezer,
> Let us not forget that at most one view is correct, the others being
> wrong,
It seems to me this notion is misleading. The universe is a *very* big
place (in time and space and whatever other dimensions there might
be) and even the universe we are in might not be the only possible
reality - so there is a vanishingly small chance that anyone's theory is
wholly right in any complete sense (and it would have to be a very big
theory to be a promising candidate!). So it seems to me that all
theories in practice are simply more or less useful and they are *all*
partly wrong. ie. there will be NO fully 'correct' theory that any real
person or reasoning entity can come up with.
If this way of looking at things is useful, then the only way a theory can
be held to be unfailingly right (correct) is to limit the cases it applies to -
to those cases where the theory doesn't fail.
So if one's aim is for *watertight* certainty this means that there must
be a tempation to actively shut out consideration of cases that could
invalidate the theory or simply leave it somewhat uncertain.
Cheers, Philip
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