This led to a fun read of “occam’s razor” wikipedia entry. Hickum’s dictum in particular was a great find (generalized beyond medicine, it could be that explanations for unexplained events can be as complex as they damn well please). As a practical corrective, it seems to me that probability theory suggests that the best accessible explanation to us for unexplained events is in the set of simpler theories, but is probably not one of the absolute simplest.
This led to a fun read of “occam’s razor” wikipedia entry. Hickum’s dictum in particular was a great find (generalized beyond medicine, it could be that explanations for unexplained events can be as complex as they damn well please). As a practical corrective, it seems to me that probability theory suggests that the best accessible explanation to us for unexplained events is in the set of simpler theories, but is probably not one of the absolute simplest.