Re: The Joy of *small* business

On 22/12/2024 11:28, D wrote:

The only difference is the latter big bang has a sentient intelligence with a Plan in charge.
>
Really we only reject it on the slender basis of Occam - it's simply more complicated than necessary to explain this shit.

 I'd add to that that one is a process and open to change (which has happened and does happen occasionally) and the other a religion.
 

I wasn't talking about the *practice* of science, or of religion for that matter. I was talking about their metaphysical *beliefs*.

I have mixed feelings about Occam, since Occam tends to shut down waaaay too many discussions waaay too quickly. Who is to say what is, in reality "simpler" or less complex, if the understanding of the questions is lacking?

Precisely, In many ways the God explanation is simpler :
"God did it all,  and faked it so it looks like he was never there at all, to test you fuckers"
...there are only three people who understand quantum physics and two of them are liars....
But if you examine Occam from outside the confines of realism and materialism, he makes perfect sense.
1. The problem of induction means that no inference  can ever be proved to be correct.
2. So given that its all bullshit anyway, why not pick the simplest bullshit that fits the facts?
3.  ...And fits within the accepted already established bullshit, that works...
That is today's problem., People are absolutely reluctant to abandon the established bullshit, that works.
Even when they know it is actually wrong.
The Kuhnian paradigm shift  is staring them in the face, but they simply cant accept it.
--
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "
Alan Sokal