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On 20/01/2023 22:53, bill w wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:mailman.37.1674255209.733.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">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.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">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.</div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">Agree? bill w</div>
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<br>
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.<br>
<br>
However:<br>
<br>
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"? ;><br>
<br>
Ben<br>
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