[ExI] Occam's razor

[Jason Resch]

Some possibly useful references:

Why the laws are simple:
https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Why_the_Laws_are_Simple

Why the laws are life friendly (while being otherwise maximally simple):
https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Why_the_Laws_are_Life-Friendly

Law without law: from observer states to physics via algorithmic
information theory:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01826v5.pdf

Why Occam's Razor:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0001020.pdf

Could the physical world be emergent:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01826v1.pdf

Jason

On Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 4:07 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 20/01/2023 22:53, bill w wrote:
>
> Just reading An Immense World, by Ed Jong (author of I Contain
> Multitudes).  Surprisingly, he makes a common error:  he wrote that Occam's
> Razor meant that the simplest explanation is the best.  Totally wrong.  It
> is as likely to be wrong as any other explanation.
>
> It means that the simplest explanation is preferred because it involves
> the fewest assumptions (entities, Occam wrote), and as we know, assumptions
> can be wrong.
>
> Agree?   bill w
>
>
> Well, it's not so much a matter of agreeing, as a matter of are you
> correct? You are, as far as I understand it.
>
> However:
>
> Which is the simpler formulation of Occam's Razor, "the simplest
> explanation is preferred because it involves the fewest assumptions" or
> "the simplest explanation is the best"?  ;>
>
> Ben
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