Occam's razor and the simplest explanation of reality

[zurew]

9 hours ago, Yarco said:

I feel like someone can misuse occams razor to justify any belief system. Whatever you believe will always seem like the simplest, most obvious and logical answer

If we frame the Occam's razor this way: "Use the least amount of assumptions to explain things", then its easier to see that it can be used to cut through a lot of bullshit. That doesn't mean that it is always true, that only means that thats the most reliable tool you can use to try to make sense of things. More reliable in this case means, making it less probable to be wrong. There is no reason to use more assumptions than whats needed. In other words: why would you make it more probable to be wrong, if its not necessary?

If we have 2 explanations and:

• Explanation 1) has 4 assumptions in it.
• Explanation 2) has 1 assumption in it.

Then its much more probable that Explanation 2) will be correct, because there is a much lower room for error.

[Ezo]

 Occam's razors will collapse upon itself 

. Keep dreaming

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Ezo

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, Someone here said:

material reality is only a supposition...a supposition that is not required to explain reality, therefore one we can cut away with the razor.

It does explain reality though. If it didn't, we wouldn't give it any thought. Occam's razor (a.k.a. conceptual parsimony) is not the only epistemic criteria by which we give weight to different metaphysics (certainly the naturalist ones). You also have things like coherence, internal logical consistency, empirical adequacy and explanatory power.

Physicalism does pretty well for most of these things. Yes, it's true that physicalism is less parsimonious than idealism, but traditional forms of idealism (everything except analytic idealism) notoriously lack empirically adequate explanations for how we get individualized personal perspectives. 

Physicalism might not have an explanation for how consciousness arises, but if consciousness is a given, then it has an explanation for how individual perspectives arise (through the arrangements of subatomic particles into separate bodies and brains), while traditional idealism does not. So in this scenario, which one should you choose: parsimony or explanatory power?

So to summarize: if you're a fan of traditional idealism but you also value logic, science etc., then you have to choose between parsimony (in this case idealism) or explanatory power (in this case physicalism). However, if you're a believer in analytical idealism, then you don't have to make that choice

[RMQualtrough]

There is nothing.

Do you understand that?

ALL things are changing and finite. Something remains though. The thing that remains is nothing. See the difference between this moment and the next, the vision is different, the audio is different, even if only a bit. The input from a moment prior is gone.

But one single thing stays stable in all of these. It's the ONLY thing that doesn't ever change or go away.

Then see if you can find the difference between your awareness itself and that one sole unchanging element. And see what that unchanging thing is.......

[Someone here]

@Carl-Richard I never said that occam's razor is the only epistemic criteria to discern truth. But I think its the most effective. And of course the most simplistic. 

You will notice it always..the simplest explanation is usually the best. The use of the word “simplicity” here may be misleading.by “simplicity” i don’t mean illogical or absurd simplicity, such as saying, “It was just magic,” but rather a logical hypothesis which makes the fewest assumptions, or posits the fewest number of necessary explanatory entities ( things, beings, causal mechanisms) 

If you wake up in the morning to find your lawn wet, you are probably more likely to attribute the wetness to rain or dew than to a giant sentient ice cube with legs that stomped through your neighborhood, leaving a trail of water in its wake. 

And yeah ..we don't need matter at all to explain reality .reality is not made out of physical "stuff ". People have never experienced stuff .they just experienced their five senses and mistakenly call it "matter "because they didn't know any better . I now have more confidence in that everything is made of consciousness. And there isn't an external material objective universe outside of consciousness. And I explained it in my other thread here ,take a look if you're interested:

 

[Someone here]

6 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

There is nothing.

Do you understand that?

ALL things are changing and finite. Something remains though. The thing that remains is nothing. See the difference between this moment and the next, the vision is different, the audio is different, even if only a bit. The input from a moment prior is gone.

But one single thing stays stable in all of these. It's the ONLY thing that doesn't ever change or go away.

Then see if you can find the difference between your awareness itself and that one sole unchanging element. And see what that unchanging thing is.......

The only unchanging thing is change itself 

[RMQualtrough]

13 minutes ago, Someone here said:

The only unchanging thing is change itself 

Change is what the mirages do. The nothingness doesn't budge or change a bit. It's always identical...

[AtheisticNonduality]

Just now, RMQualtrough said:

Change is what the mirages do. The nothingness doesn't budge or change a bit. It's always identical...

The Nothingness creates the mirages, is them.

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

You will notice it always..the simplest explanation is usually the best. The use of the word “simplicity” here may be misleading.by “simplicity” i don’t mean illogical or absurd simplicity, such as saying, “It was just magic,” but rather a logical hypothesis which makes the fewest assumptions, or posits the fewest number of necessary explanatory entities ( things, beings, causal mechanisms).

Usually, but not always. The most parsimonious explanation is to not give an explanation, because that requires the fewest assumptions. Truly good explanations tend to give you an optimal grip on the situation: the optimal ratio between simplicity vs. complexity, specificity vs. generality etc. For example, Spiral Dynamics wouldn't be such a good model if you threw out all the color-coded vMEMEs and replaced them with something like a spectrum of low to high consciousness, even though that would be a more parsimonious option. It's the same when it comes to metaphysics: how can you give both a detailed and comprehensive account of what reality is? It's a question of balance and elegance.

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

Explanatory power borrowed from unparsimonious assumptions, is no explanatory power at all. It's "just play along" fantasy.

That's all of metaphysics

[Someone here]

10 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Usually, but not always. The most parsimonious explanation is to not give an explanation, because that requires the fewest assumptions. Truly good explanations tend to give you an optimal grip on the situation: the optimal ratio between simplicity vs. complexity, specificity vs. generality etc. For example, Spiral Dynamics wouldn't be such a good model if you threw out all the color-coded vMEMEs and replaced them with something like a spectrum of low to high consciousness, even though that would be a more parsimonious option. It's the same when it comes to metaphysics: how can you give both a detailed and comprehensive account of what reality is? It's a question of balance and elegance.

I think you misunderstand Occam’s razor. It basically says that if there are multiple explanations for something, the one that is simpler is usually the best one, or at least the one to start with. Another way to put it, the more assumptions, the more unlikely the the hypotheses. It doesn't say ignore the other ideas. One thing that can happen over time is that for some of the hypotheses, the assumptions may be reduced. Assumptions, in this context, are things we don't know, but may learn at as our knowledge expands.

So spiral dynamics is a model that does NOT  follow occam's razor as you stated .therefore its falty and has its own limitations  because it seems to lie purely in the realm of speculation and therefore have little correspondence with verifiable fact.

By verifiable fact, I mean repeatable experimental results expressed as a probability that predictions based upon them will agree with what actually happens.

It (spiral dynamics)provides little or no means to link ideas with observable reality. This simply means that their veracity cannot be reliably stated and not whether they are in any degree correct or incorrect. However, this lack of verifiability as well as a means of falsification, places them in the realm of conjecture no matter how plausible or compelling they may seem.

So actually the model would be more accurate if we replaced it with a spectrum from low consciousness to high consciousness. 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Someone here

[Ezo]

You created Occam’s razor. So keep dreaming.

[Someone here]

@Ezo stop shit-posting. 

[Ezo]

How am I shit posting? Please enlighten me.

[Someone here]

@Ezo you keep posting the same stupid line "you are dreaming occam's razor "without further explanation. 

OK fine ..I'm ignorant and deluded .spare me your intelligence. I don't need it .thank you very much .

[Ezo]

No, you are not ignorant and you are not deluded. I do try to spare my intelligence. I am sorry if I offended you 

[Someone here]

@Ezo OK. Apology accepted. 

[Ezo]

I wish there was a place on this beautiful forum where one could post music.

[Ezo]

Thanks, beautiful you

[RMQualtrough]

48 minutes ago, Ezo said:

You created Occam’s razor. So keep dreaming.

I'd like to dream that I have a better hobby than this.

Fml.