You should probably be skeptical when presented with binary hypotheses (either by someone else or by default). Say in this example that H1 is "emergence". The alternative for H1 isn't "mind-stuff" but simply ~H1. This includes the possibility of "mind-stuff" but also any alternatives to both emergence and mindstuff. Maybe a good rule to follow would be to assume and account for your ignorance from the beginning instead of trying to notice it.
One way to make this explicit might be to always have at least three hypotheses: One in favor, one for an alternative, and a catchall for ignorance; the catchall reflecting the little that you know about the subject. The less you know about the subject, the larger your bucket.
Maybe in this case, your ignorance allocation (i.e. prior probability for ignorance) is 50%. This would leave 50% to share between the emergence hypothesis and the mindstuff hypothesis. I personally think that the mindstuff hypothesis is pretty close to zero, so the remainder would be in favor of emergence, even if it's wrong. In this case, "emergence" is asserted to be a non-explanation, but this could probably be demonstrated in some way, like sharing likelihood ratios; that might even show that "mindstuff" is an equally vapid explanation for consciousness.
So I just wound up in a debate with someone over on Reddit about the value of conventional academic philosophy. He linked me to a book review, in which both the review and the book are absolutely godawful. That is, the author (and the reviewer following him) start with ontological monism (the universe only contains a single kind of Stuff: mass-energy), adds in the experience of consciousness, reasons deftly that emergence is a load of crap... and then arrives to the conclusion of panpsychism.
WAIT HOLD ON, DON'T FLAME YET!
Of course panpsychism is bunk. I would be embarrassed to be caught upholding it, given the evidence I currently have, but what I want to talk about is the logic being followed.
1) The universe is a unified, consistent whole. Good!
2) The universe contains the experience/existence of consciousness. Easily observable.
3) If consciousness exists, something in the universe must cause or give rise to consciousness. Good reasoning!
4) "Emergence" is a non-explanation, so that can't be it. Good!
5) Therefore, whatever stuff the unified universe is made of must be giving rise to consciousness in a nonemergent way.
6) Therefore, the stuff must be innately "mindy".
What went wrong in steps (5) and (6)? The man was actually reasoning more-or-less correctly! Given the universe he lived in, and the impossibility of emergence, he reallocated his probability mass to the remaining answer. When he had eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, however low its prior, must be true.
The problem was, he eliminated the impossible, but left open a huge vast space of possible hypotheses that he didn't know about (but which we do): the most common of these is the computational theory of mind and consciousness, which says that we are made of cognitive algorithms. A Solomonoff Inducer can just go on to the next length of bit-strings describing Turing machines, but we can't.
Now, I can spot the flaw in the reasoning here. What frightens me is: what if I'm presented with some similar argument, and I can't spot the flaw? What if, instead, I just neatly and stupidly reallocate my belief to what seems to me to be the only available alternative, while failing to go out and look for alternatives I don't already know about? Notably, it seems like expected evidence is conserved, but expecting to locate new hypotheses means I should be reducing my certainty about all currently-available hypotheses now to have some for dividing between the new possibilities.
If you can notice when you're confused, how do you notice when you're ignorant?