taro: "i keep having to hold myself back from saying "parsimonious" because of philosophy of science in my mind it has come to have an aesthetic association of harmony and coherence when really it's more about frugality of assumptions"

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i keep having to hold myself back from saying "parsimonious" because of philosophy of science in my mind it has come to have an aesthetic association of harmony and coherence when really it's more about frugality of assumptions

taroFeb 4, 2026

envy as dyadic and jealousy as triadic is appealingly simple and harmonious but i think there might be some challenging edge cases

February 4, 2026 at 4:26 AM

taroFeb 4, 2026

i think you could argue that those are likely implications, and a lot of philosophy of science kind of takes that for granted especially on a rhetorical level, but yes very distinct things and id be mistaking the effect for the cause

taroFeb 4, 2026

supposed* cause. there are some compelling reasons to believe in the emergent properties of theoretical parsimony if you're a positivist and/or have a relatively narrow scope