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All knowledge is of an approximate character and always will be (B.
Russell, Human Knowledge, 1948, pg 497 and 507). Our formalisms
abstract, idealize, and simplify (R. L. Epstein, Propositional Logics,
2001, Ch XI and E. Bender, An Introduction to Mathematical Modeling,
1978, pgs v and 2). Each formalism is an idealization, often times
approximating in its own DIFFERENT ways, each offering somewhat
different coverage of the domain. Having MULTIPLE overlaping theories
of a knowledge domain is then better than having just one theory (R.
Jones, APS general meeting, April 2004). Theories are not unique (T.
M. Mitchell, Machine Learning, 1997, pg 65-66 and Cooper, Machine
Learning, vol. 9, 1992, pg 319). In the future every field will
possess multiple theories of its domain and scientific work and
engineering will be performed based on the ensemble predictions of ALL
of these. In some cases the theories may be quite divergent,
differing greatly one from the other. This idea can be considered an
extension of Bohr's notions of complementarity, "...different
experimental arrangements...described by different physical
concepts...together and only together exhaust the definable
information we can obtain about the object" (H. J. Folse, The
Philosophy of Neils Bohr, 1985, pg 238). This is not postmodernism.
Witchdoctor's theories will not form a part of medical science.
Objective data, not human opinion, will decide which theories we use
and how we weight their various predictions. |
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