Rise of atheism: 100,000 Brits seek 'de-baptism'

[donathos]

appolose said:

donathos said:

appolose said:

It's the principle in Occam's razor I find to be wrong.  It's not necessarily true that the simplest explanation that works as well as the others is most likely because it's unknown how complex the explanation really is.

I know, I know, I said I was going... :)

Just wanted to briefly jump in about Occam's Razor, because I think there might be some confusion about it.

Occam's Razor pertains to epistemology, not metaphysics.  What I mean is, Occam's Razor does not insist that the "simplest solution" is the correct solution--it insists that we have no call to believe anything beyond the simplest solution that accounts for the evidence.

Meaning, there may well be a Matrix (metaphysics), but unless we have evidence of it, there is no reason to posit it (epistemology).

 

ETA: What I always take as a necessary corollary of Occam's Razor is that a proper theory must account for all of the evidence; there are theories that are "too simple," just as the Razor would cut away any needless complications.

Didn't get enough, eh?  :P

But it does insist the most simply is the most likely, yes?  My objection is we don't know how complex the solution is, so there's no reason just to go with the simplist.

Here's my view of Occam's Razor:  (and this'll be fairly abstract; I'm aiming for clarity)

There are three data points that need explaining, A, B, and C.

Three different theories are proposed to explain them.  Theory 1 explains A & B, but does not explain C.  Theory 2 explains A, B and C, and also requires that we accept the yet unknown/unproven data point D.  Theory 3 explains A, B and C, and does not require data point D to be true.

I believe that Occam's Razor says that, based on these conditions and these alone (i.e. "all else being equal"), we give tentative agreement to Theory 3.

Theory 2 is complicated beyond necessity; data point D is clearly not needed to explain A, B & C, as Theory 3 demonstrates.  And so there is no need to invent data point D.

However, and speaking to my corollary, Theory 1 is "too simple."  It doesn't do what we need it to do, which is to explain all three of our given data points, and it too must be rejected in favor of Theory 3.

 

Now, like I've said, this is an epistemological exercise, not a metaphysical one: it may be the case that Theory 3 is false, and that data point D exists and Theory 2 is true.  It's just that, unless we have data point D, there is no call to take Theory 2 above Theory 3; we fit our working theory to the available evidence, no more and no less.

And so, let me try to directly answer your question as phrased:

But it does insist the most simply is the most likely, yes?

Not the most likely, exactly.  Just that the most simple solution is the only one we're justified in adopting.

 

Gar, I hate sounding "academic."  Does that make a lick of sense to anyone other than me? :)