shanerg is right, Occam’s razor is not “The simplest answer is usually the right one.” It is, “do not suggest entities for which there are no need”.
That is a common misrepresentation of Occam’s razor, and it is extremely vague and I think it shouldn’t be used, it has too many hidden assumptions. Now I do agree with everything that was written in the article, but everything in the article was the underlying explanation for why Occam’s razor is true, which simply put, has to do with statistics. I was disappointed though, that this article that was about Occam’s razor, didn’t actually have Occam’s razor in it.
I’m sure we could have a fruitful discussion about the proper form of Occam’s Razor, generally speaking it is taken slightly differently than the precise wording attributed to William of Occam.
However, shanerg’s post includes several questions answered explicitly and prominently in the post to which ey is responding. Based on this, I expected that a lengthy philosophical response would be wasted.
shanerg is right, Occam’s razor is not “The simplest answer is usually the right one.” It is, “do not suggest entities for which there are no need”.
That is a common misrepresentation of Occam’s razor, and it is extremely vague and I think it shouldn’t be used, it has too many hidden assumptions. Now I do agree with everything that was written in the article, but everything in the article was the underlying explanation for why Occam’s razor is true, which simply put, has to do with statistics. I was disappointed though, that this article that was about Occam’s razor, didn’t actually have Occam’s razor in it.
I’m sure we could have a fruitful discussion about the proper form of Occam’s Razor, generally speaking it is taken slightly differently than the precise wording attributed to William of Occam.
However, shanerg’s post includes several questions answered explicitly and prominently in the post to which ey is responding. Based on this, I expected that a lengthy philosophical response would be wasted.