Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: PreciousLiberty
"As a practical matter, it takes a lot less energy to rotate an object, than to rotate the entire universe around it."

Which is a philosophical preference wrt the origins of the universe that has nothing to do w/ Occam's Razor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor

"Thus the popular rephrasing of the razor - that "the simplest explanation is the best one" - fails to capture the gist of the reason behind it, in that it conflates a rigorous notion of simplicity and ease of human comprehension. The two are obviously correlated, but hardly equivalent."

82 posted on 05/05/2008 6:28:57 AM PDT by GourmetDan (Eccl 10:2 - The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies ]


To: GourmetDan

’ Which is a philosophical preference wrt the origins of the universe that has nothing to do w/ Occam’s Razor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam’s_Razor

“Thus the popular rephrasing of the razor - that “the simplest explanation is the best one” - fails to capture the gist of the reason behind it, in that it conflates a rigorous notion of simplicity and ease of human comprehension. The two are obviously correlated, but hardly equivalent.”’

Which misses the point that the simplest explanation that fits the facts is very often correct, and a good starting point. For any observed phenomenon there is an infinite manifold of (excessively) complex explanations. Read about epicycles sometime, for example.


83 posted on 05/05/2008 9:24:56 AM PDT by PreciousLiberty
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson