On the Success of Scientific Theories

[FallentoReason]

I absolutely agree that it is a very interesting question, I just wasn't ok with the wording.

You're right. I should have been more careful with that!

What is the meaning of "approximate truth" as pertaining to theories?

Well, imagine that if we assumed the universe had a set of ultimate truths, T, then the approximate truth of a particular theory would look something like this:

Assume these sets

T: a red ball, blue ball and yellow ball
theory A: a red ball, dog and blue ball
theory B: a blue ball and yellow ball

Then B would be more approximately true than A with respect to the ultimate truths T because A assumes something that isn't true whereas B only fails by not mentioning one other truth, and also according to Occam's Razor, is a better explanation.

Likewise with QM and relativity, it seems they get some things right, but they're not quite there yet, hence what can only be their "approximation" of truth.

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I wonder if this stuff would help?

Solomonoff's theory of universal inductive inference is a theory of prediction based on logical observations, such as predicting the next symbol based upon a given series of symbols. The only assumption that the theory makes is that the environment follows some unknown but computable probability distribution. It is a mathematical formalization of Occam's razor and the Principle of Multiple Explanations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%..._inference

Umm, maybe? It depends on what you think this is addressing in the OP. Or were you responding to the notion of approximate truth only?

I'm not quite sure how this fits in.