alexflint comments on Occam alternatives - Less Wrong

22 Post author: selylindi 25 January 2012 07:50AM

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Comment author: alexflint 29 January 2012 10:15:54AM *  1 point [-]

Occam\s razor is famously difficult to justify except by circular appeal to itself. It's interesting to think of alternatives but you should be aware of what you give up when you give up Occam's razor. You can no longer make sensible inferences about the future based on your past experiences. For example, you can no longer have any confidence that the direction of gravity will still point downwards tomorrow, or that the laws of physics won't spontaneously change a minute from now. The experimental method itself no longer makes sense if you have no reason to think that the future will resemble the past.

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