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To: All Heroes
Dec. 21st, 2014 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
line_pieceHow many of you are familiar with Occam's Razor and the falsifiability criterion of the scientific method? I've been thinking about it lately, especially in relation to this place. I know some of you might not know what it is, so I'll explain it.
Occam's Razor is a problem-solving principle that states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may eventually prove correct, but in the absence of certainty, the fewer assumptions are made, the better. In other words, the simplest explanation to a question is usually right.
When I first got here, I had an idea of how it happened and why. It relates to the technology level where I come from, and I'll spare most of the details, but I've experienced something like this before. Sort of. It's called virtual reality, and it lets you experience a different world - a simulation - as if you were really there, all from the safety of your own room. I thought that was probably what was going on for everyone, but after talking to a few of you, I'm not so sure. But there's a problem with that too.
The explanation I keep coming back to is that we were all brought here from different worlds by way of magic. The problem with that explanation is - from my perspective - that it involves at least two assumptions that I'm being asked to accept right away. The first is the existence of multiple universes. The second is the existence of magic. And actually, there's a third one too: that magic is capable of moving people between those universes.
So if this really is an alternate world, it's totally possible that magic really does exist here. In fact, that would be the simplest conclusion in that case. But this is where the falsifiability criterion comes in. I have no real way of proving whether this place is real or not, and by extension no way of proving if magic exists either. If it does, then alternate worlds and magic are simply natural laws and not assumptions to be made.
In other words, what I'm trying to say is I'm not sure what to think. Without hard evidence to support either viewpoint, it's hard to reach a solid conclusion. So instead, I thought I'd try something my friends and I used to do at home. We would basically just have long arguments where everyone would yell at each other, but let's call them Nonstop Debates instead. It sounds a little better.
So, fellow Heroes of Light, tell me: how do I know we were really all brought here by magic from different worlds and that we're not all just in the same simulation together?
-- Chiaki Nanami
Occam's Razor is a problem-solving principle that states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may eventually prove correct, but in the absence of certainty, the fewer assumptions are made, the better. In other words, the simplest explanation to a question is usually right.
When I first got here, I had an idea of how it happened and why. It relates to the technology level where I come from, and I'll spare most of the details, but I've experienced something like this before. Sort of. It's called virtual reality, and it lets you experience a different world - a simulation - as if you were really there, all from the safety of your own room. I thought that was probably what was going on for everyone, but after talking to a few of you, I'm not so sure. But there's a problem with that too.
The explanation I keep coming back to is that we were all brought here from different worlds by way of magic. The problem with that explanation is - from my perspective - that it involves at least two assumptions that I'm being asked to accept right away. The first is the existence of multiple universes. The second is the existence of magic. And actually, there's a third one too: that magic is capable of moving people between those universes.
So if this really is an alternate world, it's totally possible that magic really does exist here. In fact, that would be the simplest conclusion in that case. But this is where the falsifiability criterion comes in. I have no real way of proving whether this place is real or not, and by extension no way of proving if magic exists either. If it does, then alternate worlds and magic are simply natural laws and not assumptions to be made.
In other words, what I'm trying to say is I'm not sure what to think. Without hard evidence to support either viewpoint, it's hard to reach a solid conclusion. So instead, I thought I'd try something my friends and I used to do at home. We would basically just have long arguments where everyone would yell at each other, but let's call them Nonstop Debates instead. It sounds a little better.
So, fellow Heroes of Light, tell me: how do I know we were really all brought here by magic from different worlds and that we're not all just in the same simulation together?
-- Chiaki Nanami
