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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

That's not an answer, that's an argument. Occam's Razor isn't like the second law of thermodynamics. It's a heuristic.

Yes. You can't prove anything by proving it is the simplest explanation. The only way to prove things is to prove that it is the only possible explanation.

Occam's Razor is just a useful mind tool that helps us navigate the world based on the observation that oftentimes the simplest explanation tends to be what is actually happening.

BTW lots of other logical mistakes.

It's also a useful tool in science. For example, we do not know and cannot prove the one-way speed of light, only a round trip speed of light. That light travels at the same speed in all directions is just a useful application of Occam's Razor; it is effectively unknowable and no experiments have yet been devised that can falsify the alternatives. Having a set one-way speed of light is a convention

> That's not an answer, that's an argument.

Fair enough, and I agree. But there may be no answer in a scientific sense -- testable, falsifiable and so forth.

> Occam's Razor isn't like the second law of thermodynamics. It's a heuristic.

Yes, true, but it's not meant to force a conclusion, only offer guidance, which might be entirely wrong at times.

The paper defines life as a chemical reaction, which is also a heuristic. We do not know if aspects of "life" exist outside of our present understanding of physics. It's great to claw away at the edges, but I don't think anyone can answer the question "what is life?" at this point.

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