Agnosticism: The most logical choice

reply to post by OnceReturned

I didn't misapply the rule, did you even read what you pasted here? It describes a common misuse that is clearly different from the instance in question and it describes the actual, specific utility in a way that is totally consistent with my earlier post. You've presented a discussion of the common misapplication as though that's what I did, but even a limited review of your text and the post that it is in reference to make clear that my application of the principal was correct.

Your entire approach has been a misapplication of the rule. Or more precisely a word game meant to make the rule into more than what it is and justify your position. Which is common. I do give you props for wordiness though.
And I did read it. It was a counter argument to a line you obviously have forgotten you typed. I didn't think I needed to spell it for you but I guess I should've expected this tactic.. This is the one line I am talking about:

A notoriously powerful idea science and the philosophy of science is Occam's Razor.

Which is refuted by this:

In the scientific method, Occam's razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic, and certainly not a scientific result.

Which is said because there has been any number of times Occam's Razor has stifled or delayed scientific progress. From my source:

However, on many occasions Occam's razor has stifled or delayed scientific progress. For example, appeals to simplicity were used to deny the phenomena of meteorites, ball lightning, continental drift, and reverse transcriptase. It originally rejected DNA as the carrier of genetic information in favor of proteins, since proteins provided the simpler explanation. Theories that reach far beyond the available data are rare, but general relativity provides one example.
In hindsight, one can argue that it is simpler to consider DNA as the carrier of genetic information, because it uses a smaller number of building blocks (four nitrogenous bases). However, during the time that proteins were the favored genetic medium, it seemed like a more complex hypothesis to confer genetic information in DNA rather than proteins.
One can also argue (also in hindsight) for atomic building blocks for matter, because it provides a simpler explanation for the observed reversibility of both mixing and chemical reactions as simple separation and re-arrangements of the atomic building blocks. However, at the time, the atomic theory was considered more complex because it inferred the existence of invisible particles which had not been directly detected. Ernst Mach and the logical positivists rejected the atomic theory of John Dalton, until the reality of atoms was more evident in Brownian motion, as explained by Albert Einstein.
In the same way, hindsight argues that postulating the aether is more complex than transmission of light through a vacuum. However, at the time, all known waves propagated through a physical medium, and it seemed simpler to postulate the existence of a medium rather than theorize about wave propagation without a medium. Likewise, Newton's idea of light particles seemed simpler than Young's idea of waves, so many favored it; however in this case, as it turned out, neither the wave- nor the particle-explanation alone suffices, since light behaves like waves as well as like particles (wave–particle duality).

That is without mentioning that your treating your *or someone else's* subjective opinion as objective fact.

I stated clearly in my discussion that the evidential support did not favor either theory. That's the main consideration, and the reason I appealed to Occam's Razor is because consideration of the evidence does not provide an answer. It is under these circumstances exactly - as described by your source - that the principal is useful. The author that you quoted says that the common misinterpretation comes when someone prefers a simpler but less correct theory over a more complicated and more correct one. This clearly is not an issue in my earlier discussion, as the more complex theory is not more correct.

Neither argument is the more correct one. Which is why you are evoking and inflating Occam's Razor to begin with, to justify your opinion. With the imperative of "sounding" scientific of course.
And you seem to have missed a line, you keep doing that I am noticing. This one:

Occam's razor is not an embargo against the positing of any kind of entity, or a recommendation of the simplest theory come what may (note that simplest theory is something like "only I exist" or "nothing exists").

It's reason, pure and simple.

I am going to assume you think logic and reason are interchangable terms. I say this because of the later comments.

The issue of how to decide what to believe is indeed a philosophical one, but that doesn't make any discussion of it less convincing.

Oh so by using logic you think you are escaping the auspex of philosophy in a philosophical debate? Since we are not talking mathematics or computer science what exactly are you evoking it as? A magical rule that is against all you disagree with?

Occam's Razor is a logical method for determining prefence between theories which are equally supported by evidence.

Um. No. Reasonable? Perhaps, I'll grant you that. Logical. No.

Can you find anything wrong with the way that I actually applied it?

I did. I just didn't spell it out for you like I am now. Didn't think I'd need to. My mistake and I apologize.

Do you think we ought to prefer the more complex theory if the evidence does not prefer either theory?

Actually I think we should prefer neither theory in the absence of evidence. Another thing I thought that was obvious.

Can you reply to what I've actually said, or do you stick to dismissing ideas because somewhere on the internet someone has misapplied them?

And I have replie. And I'd like to know where you got that last part.

Your criticism here was way off the mark. I think your dismissal of the application of this principal indicates that either you don't really understand it, or you're determined to reject any challenge to any pro-god argument and don't care if you have a good reason or not.

Tis not I that don't understand it. Why exactly would someone arguing that

Agnosticism

is the most logical approach at this current time determine to reject any challenge to any pro-god argument??????

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Just like it's just "Aweso" without ME,

it's just "A" without the "gnosticism" .. which is "gnosis" which is "truthful knowledge about this reality we share".
the "A" implies LACK of knowledge about this reality we share...

we collectively, ARE the Amnesiac God.. and if he pretends to not believe in himself, then that's his choice.
I'm sure through his many faces.. (us) he'll find ample logic to defend that position to the end.
doesn't make it true though.

-

Watcher only needed one word of his plate of copypasta: heuristic.

The shamelessly misnamed Occam's Razor is a heuristic. Heuristic means an unreliable guide to truth that is sometimes used as a guide despite its unreliability.

A heuristic has no normative force whatsoever. People who like it may choose to use it, people who don't like it may choose not to use it. There is no arguing about tastes.

Therefore, to say

This means that if we have no evidence to prefer one theory over another, we should prefer the simpler one.

using the normative and prescriptive should, is an abuse of language.

Two equally well supported theories might, in the alternative, be held in credal equipoise. Or, theories may be distinguished by the specificty or precision of their predictions, which is also, like intuited "simplicity," a sometimes reasonable ordering principle for testing. Theories might be distinguished on aesthetic or utilitarian grounds.

The list goes on. There is nothing special about Occam's Razor.