Re: Occam Razor

From: James Higgo (co.uk) <"James>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 19:39:24 -0000

George, your friend, in hypothesizing the existence of an 'object' is
immediately coming out as a dualist - an extremely unparsimonious thing to
do. The only things we can operate upon are our own logical constructs. Your
professor should go back to school - even Russell could teach him a thing or
two.
James
----- Original Message -----
From: Russell Standish <R.Standish.domain.name.hidden>
To: Saibal Mitra <smitra.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <GLevy.domain.name.hidden>; <everything-list.domain.name.hidden.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2000 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: Occam Razor


> Saibal Mitra wrote:
> >
> > George Levy wrote:
> >
> > > A philosophy professor friend of mine rejected the use of Occam razor
to
> > > justify the many-world interpretation. He pointed out to me that
> > > classically Occam razor aims at simplifying the object, not the theory
> > > behind the object.
> > >
> > > The way he sees it, the many-world interpretation achieves a simple
> > > theory at the expense of a very large object, and therefore, cannot be
> > > justified by the classical Occam razor. This point is one of the
> > > favorite criticism of the anti-many-worlder advocates. Thus Occam
razor
> > > can only be used if we are very clear about its meaning: the simplest
> > > theory is selected rather than the simplest object.
> > >
> > > The history of science, and in particular Astronomy has been an
> > > expansion of our horizons. The perceived world has been getting larger
> > > and larger and more and more complex as science progresses. Let's be
> > > clear when we talk about Occam.
> > >
> > > George
> > >
> > But then one shouldn't use Occam to justify some version of a
many-worlds
> > hypothesis. It's the other way around. If one assumes a suitable version
of
> > many-worlds, Occam naturally follows.
> >
> > Saibal
> >
>
> Yes it is true that a suitable many-worlds implies Occam (as per my
> paper of that title, for example). However, it is also true that the
> best reason for accepting an all universes hypothesis is the zero
> information principle - ie basically Occam's razor again. Whilst one
> might suspect a vicious circle here, I believe it's not. At very
> least, the theory is self-consistent, something I expect not to be
> true of any variant of Occam's razor.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> Dr. Russell Standish            Director
> High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                     Fax   9385 6965
> Australia            R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
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>
>
Received on Mon Dec 18 2000 - 11:46:37 PST

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