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Your sarcasm reflects back on you, as explained by my concurrent edit to my point, which I will repeat here: Occam's razor is not, as Wikipedia claims, a matte

Your sarcasm reflects back on you, as explained by my concurrent edit to my point, which I will repeat here: Occam's razor is not, as Wikipedia claims, a matter of "the simplest explanation is usually the right one": it is a matter of eliminating premises that are not explaining anything beyond what can already be explained. Your armchair "hypothesis" that, in about 1000 years, gravity will cease to function entirely, is not something that needs to be explained.

whimsicalism 6y ago
Rather than delving into whether additional assumptions is related to the complexity of a theory, which I think is a largely pedantic debate, I think we don't disagree as much as you perceive. > not something that needs to be explained I agree, and I'm saying that Sabine is discounting the same tool that you used to reject my hypothesis. That is my point. If there is an explanation for BHIP that does not introduce any new assumptions or very small assumptions to existing theory, that lends it credence even in the absence of direct observations of black holes, just as we lack direct observation of gravity 1000 years from now.
- mannykannot 6y ago
  I entered this discussion merely to point out what I saw as a problem with an example that you chose to make your point with. If you think that leads to a pedantic debate, then maybe it wasn't a good example to begin with. So long as you continue to insist, as you do in your last sentence above, that this is an appropriate analogy for the point you are trying to make, I will regard it as a weakness in your position. To put that aside and address your larger point, then if we had just one candidate that provides "an explanation for BHIP that does not introduce any new assumptions or very small assumptions to existing theory", then it would indeed be a plausible candidate explanation. That is not, however, the situation we are faced with: Hossenfelder's argument is that there are many equally plausible (and equally speculative) ways in which the paradox could be resolved (though none that "[do] not introduce any new assumptions or very small assumptions to existing theory"), with no prospect of us getting the data to choose between them (note that Hossenfelder is highly skeptical of choosing between theories on the basis of 'beauty', 'elegance' or other subjective distinctions[1]. As I explained above, Occam's razor is not in this category.) As far as I know, this argument might fail if some data from a seemingly unrelated field supports just one of the candidate resolutions of the paradox. This might be the point you are trying to make, but if so, your "gravity might fail" analogy isn't helping, as we are not currently faced with multiple, equally-plausible theories of gravity, one of which will be preferred if gravity stops working in 1000 years (speculating that it might do so is neither an observation nor a theory of gravity, it's just speculation.) [1] https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/0465094252 https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/04...
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    The pedantic debate is because you refuse to acknowledge Occam's Razor has anything to do with the simplicity of a theory, not related to the specific example I constructed. > Hossenfelder's argument is that there are many equally plausible (and equally speculative) ways This is just not true. Most of the resolutions of the past required new conjectures like EP=EPR, whereas recent solutions rely on newer sort of uses of a path integral, but are still built up from basic QFT+GR. Claiming agnosticism between those two theories is discarding Occam's Razor entirely, as the latter relies on constructing way less strong of assumptions and provides a believable mechanism for information preservation.
    - mannykannot 6y ago
      I have explained why Occam's razor is not a simplistic and subjective matter of preferring simple solutions, and your only response to that is to keep saying I'm wrong, without saying why. That is one factor in keeping this discussion going. The other thing was your insistence that your "gravity might fail" scenario is a relevant analogy; at least you did not continue pushing that view in your latest post. >> Hossenfelder's argument is that there are many equally plausible (and equally speculative) ways > This is just not true. Most of the resolutions of the past required new conjectures like EP=EPR, whereas recent solutions rely on newer sort of uses of a path integral, but are still built up from basic QFT+GR. As far as I can tell, what I wrote here seems to reflect what Hossenfelder is saying in the article. Here, for the first time, you seem to be making a reasonable argument that the specific hypotheses are not, in fact, all alike, and that they may differ in a way that at least opens up the possibility of applying Occam's razor correctly - i.e. by rejecting any that make unnecessarily broad or strong assumptions. This brings us to Hossenfelder's follow-on point: we're going to need more data in order to figure out which, if any, is correct [1]. Without more data, neither Occam's razor nor any other principle (and certainly not subjective simplicity) is sufficient to do this - the most you can do is have a preference, based possibly on which you think is least likely to run into problems with Occam's razor. That's not enough to turn a hypothesis into a theory. This is the point that you started this thread by objecting to, and I do not think you have yet made a strong enough case to overthrow it, though you are now making better arguments than before. [1] I'm not sure about Hossenfelder's apparent claim that this data can only come from observing black-hole decay, but that's a separate matter.

whimsicalism 6y ago

Rather than delving into whether additional assumptions is related to the complexity of a theory, which I think is a largely pedantic debate, I think we don't disagree as much as you perceive. > not something that needs to be explained I agree, and I'm saying that Sabine is discounting the same tool that you used to reject my hypothesis. That is my point. If there is an explanation for BHIP that does not introduce any new assumptions or very small assumptions to existing theory, that lends it credence even in the absence of direct observations of black holes, just as we lack direct observation of gravity 1000 years from now.

mannykannot 6y ago
I entered this discussion merely to point out what I saw as a problem with an example that you chose to make your point with. If you think that leads to a pedantic debate, then maybe it wasn't a good example to begin with. So long as you continue to insist, as you do in your last sentence above, that this is an appropriate analogy for the point you are trying to make, I will regard it as a weakness in your position. To put that aside and address your larger point, then if we had just one candidate that provides "an explanation for BHIP that does not introduce any new assumptions or very small assumptions to existing theory", then it would indeed be a plausible candidate explanation. That is not, however, the situation we are faced with: Hossenfelder's argument is that there are many equally plausible (and equally speculative) ways in which the paradox could be resolved (though none that "[do] not introduce any new assumptions or very small assumptions to existing theory"), with no prospect of us getting the data to choose between them (note that Hossenfelder is highly skeptical of choosing between theories on the basis of 'beauty', 'elegance' or other subjective distinctions[1]. As I explained above, Occam's razor is not in this category.) As far as I know, this argument might fail if some data from a seemingly unrelated field supports just one of the candidate resolutions of the paradox. This might be the point you are trying to make, but if so, your "gravity might fail" analogy isn't helping, as we are not currently faced with multiple, equally-plausible theories of gravity, one of which will be preferred if gravity stops working in 1000 years (speculating that it might do so is neither an observation nor a theory of gravity, it's just speculation.) [1] https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/0465094252 https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/04...
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  The pedantic debate is because you refuse to acknowledge Occam's Razor has anything to do with the simplicity of a theory, not related to the specific example I constructed. > Hossenfelder's argument is that there are many equally plausible (and equally speculative) ways This is just not true. Most of the resolutions of the past required new conjectures like EP=EPR, whereas recent solutions rely on newer sort of uses of a path integral, but are still built up from basic QFT+GR. Claiming agnosticism between those two theories is discarding Occam's Razor entirely, as the latter relies on constructing way less strong of assumptions and provides a believable mechanism for information preservation.
  - mannykannot 6y ago
    I have explained why Occam's razor is not a simplistic and subjective matter of preferring simple solutions, and your only response to that is to keep saying I'm wrong, without saying why. That is one factor in keeping this discussion going. The other thing was your insistence that your "gravity might fail" scenario is a relevant analogy; at least you did not continue pushing that view in your latest post. >> Hossenfelder's argument is that there are many equally plausible (and equally speculative) ways > This is just not true. Most of the resolutions of the past required new conjectures like EP=EPR, whereas recent solutions rely on newer sort of uses of a path integral, but are still built up from basic QFT+GR. As far as I can tell, what I wrote here seems to reflect what Hossenfelder is saying in the article. Here, for the first time, you seem to be making a reasonable argument that the specific hypotheses are not, in fact, all alike, and that they may differ in a way that at least opens up the possibility of applying Occam's razor correctly - i.e. by rejecting any that make unnecessarily broad or strong assumptions. This brings us to Hossenfelder's follow-on point: we're going to need more data in order to figure out which, if any, is correct [1]. Without more data, neither Occam's razor nor any other principle (and certainly not subjective simplicity) is sufficient to do this - the most you can do is have a preference, based possibly on which you think is least likely to run into problems with Occam's razor. That's not enough to turn a hypothesis into a theory. This is the point that you started this thread by objecting to, and I do not think you have yet made a strong enough case to overthrow it, though you are now making better arguments than before. [1] I'm not sure about Hossenfelder's apparent claim that this data can only come from observing black-hole decay, but that's a separate matter.