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To: tortoise
Occam's Razor and all that, since we are dragging algorithmic information theory into the discussion.

OK, according to Occam's Razor, who is the "prime mover". Secondly, if you are trying to prove the non-existance of God, why would you use Occam's Razor which gets its name from a 13th century Franciscan Monk?

265 posted on 01/26/2005 12:06:30 PM PST by frog_jerk_2004
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To: frog_jerk_2004
OK, according to Occam's Razor, who is the "prime mover".

Non sequitur. Occam's Razor orders a set of possible hypotheses by probability of correctness. It does not make hypotheses. Esoterica: There are algorithmic methods for generating Occam-optimal hypotheses, but that is a completely different topic.

Secondly, if you are trying to prove the non-existance of God, why would you use Occam's Razor which gets its name from a 13th century Franciscan Monk?

1.) I'm not trying to prove the non-existence of God. I'm making pointed observations that need to be made for the sake of rigor.

2.) Even if I was, only the validity of the reasoning matters, not who a person was. This is mathematics, not religious doctrine, and nowhere in its description will you see "God", even from a Franciscan monk. Apparently you are upset because I didn't engage in some kind of ad hominem in my reasoning. It certainly would have made it easier for you if my reasoning contained such fallacies. A trepanned monkey could have asserted Occam's Razor and it would not make it any less valid.

3.) Occam's Razor has a long and distinguished history. The first assertion of it (that we know of) was by Epicureus, Occam famously restated it, Kolmogorov formalized it mathematically, and someone whose name I forget proved the universal optimality of it. I, for one, am not going to ignore a well-established and proven theorem of mathematics.

Mathematics does not take sides, and it either stands or falls by its own merits. You can't tweak it if you find the outcomes undesirable.

345 posted on 01/26/2005 1:04:50 PM PST by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
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