Quote:a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities

And, William of Occam did not invent it:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-...2017-03-29

I am somewhat surprised that no one has jumped in on this one!  (I was waiting for one of the "Christians among Us" to do so!)  But, hey, here's my point in posting this -- if theists are going to reject polytheism because it supposedly violates Occam's razor, why criticize atheists for rejecting theism, deism, etc., for having violated Occam's razor, also?!  After all, why not explain the unknown in terms of the known?  Why appeal at all to some phenomenon outside of Nature when there are perfectly good hypotheses within Nature?

A razor needs to be sharp. Reason is a strop which daily use keeps a fine edge. Religion is not a strop. It is a rock to strike your razor on to keep it chipped and dull.

(April 5, 2017 at 9:02 pm)Jehanne Wrote: I am somewhat surprised that no one has jumped in on this one!  (I was waiting for one of the "Christians among Us" to do so!)  But, hey, here's my point in posting this -- if theists are going to reject polytheism because it supposedly violates Occam's razor, why criticize atheists for rejecting theism, deism, etc., for having violated Occam's razor, also?!  After all, why not explain the unknown in terms of the known?  Why appeal at all to some phenomenon outside of Nature when there are perfectly good hypotheses within Nature?

Funny thing I have encountered theists who have tried to argue naturalism violates Occams razor.  While theism doesn't. Because we posit complex interaction of stuff that actually exists . While they infer one useless catch all universal vitalism to explain everything. That's existence or non existences doesn't seem all that different.

Orochi nailed it. Occam's Razor opts for the simplest explanation, not the simplistic explanation. Theism doesn't really explain anything at all.

Boru

(March 29, 2017 at 9:19 am)Jehanne Wrote:

Quote:a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities

And, William of Occam did not invent it:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-...2017-03-29

That "or that ..." seems unnecessary in my view. I've always considered Occam's Razor as the first part of the definition, that given 2 or more explanations the simplest of the explanations is preferred. Seems more like a rule of thumb than a general law of theories.

But can't it go the other way? That a theory is complex and should be considered against a simpler explanatory theory? Pilot Wave Theory springs to mind, which is widely rejected compared to the Copenhagen interpretation of QM.

And Pilot Wave Theory could become the more parsimonious explanation if evidence was discovered that supported it, and then the Copenhagen interpretation would have to be re-worked to account for the new evidence, which could easily result in it becoming the less parsimonious explanation.

Meanwhile, people are criticizing ideas of the multiverse based on extra universes being unnecessary entities when multiple universes are necessary implication of certain cosmological hypotheses which fit the evidence and for which the math works. The extra universe are not 'explanatory entities', but it has been noted that if they are the case, the fine-tuning argument for intelligent universe design doesn't work.