Even when I disagree, I love to read your posts because you have such a
nice style. I pretty much agree with everything you said about Ockhams
Razor. But Galileo caught my eye.
> ....in witnessing to the explanation that most simply accounted for
> certain observed facts of how the cosmos worked. Those observations
> didn't fit with a geocentric model of the solar system, but did fit
> with a heliocentric one.
Galileo is a perfect example of the use of the principle of parsimony.
He cut through the crap of epicycles in epicycles in epicycles as a
model of the solar system. But he also applied parsimony in a broader
way, reducing the motion of celestial bodies to terrestrial physical
principles. He saw simplicity and unity in a universe previously seen
as composed of mutually exclusive domains of existence.
> the boy turned out to be bloody well right, on the mechanistic level.
What are the other levels? Do they have any consequence in the
operation of the solar system?
> And died for it.
I thought they forced him to recant, but spared his life.
Dale
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