Copyright 2008 INIST-CNRS CC BY 4.0 Sauf mention contraire ci-dessus, le contenu de cette notice bibliographique peut être utilisé dans le cadre d’une licence CC BY 4.0 Inist-CNRS / Unless otherwise stated above, the content of this bibliographic record may be used under a CC BY 4.0 licence by Inist-CNRS / A menos que se haya señalado antes, el contenido de este registro bibliográfico puede ser utilizado al amparo de una licencia CC BY 4.0 Inist-CNRS
Notes:
Computer science; theoretical automation; systems
Mathematics
Accession Number:
edscal.19061049
Database:
PASCAL Archive
Further Information
The nature of empirical simplicity and its relationship to scientific truth are long-standing puzzles. In this paper, empirical simplicity is explicated in terms of empirical effects, which are defined in terms of the structure of the inference problem addressed. Problem instances are classified according to the number of empirical effects they present. Simple answers are satisfied by simple worlds. An efficient solution achieves the optimum worst-case cost over each complexity class with respect to such costs as the number of retractions or errors prior to convergence and elapsed time to convergence. It is shown that always choosing the simplest theory compatible with experience and hanging on to it while it remains the simplest is both necessary and sufficient for efficiency.
