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If solipsism wins in quantitative simplicity, is that a reason to believe in solipsism?

Or does the fact that the existence of other minds wins in explanatory simplicity neutralize the quantitative simplicity of solipsism?

Is explanatory simplicity as important as quantitative simplicity?

If solipsism is quantitatively simpler, how much will its probability increase?

If the existence of other minds is explainably simpler, how much will the probability of the existence of other minds increase?

I thought that quantitative and explanatory simplicity give 50 percent probability each.

That is, solipsism gets 50 probability for quantitative simplicity, and the existence of other minds gets 50 probability for explanatory simplicity. Am I right or wrong?

Or does quantitative simplicity give more percentages of probability?

Is solipsism more likely than the existence of other minds? What are the percentages?

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    There is no consensus on which form of simplicity to take. Neither is there any consensus on how exactly to choose between theories. The process is up to interpretation. However, the most important values considered by scientists generally involve predictive power, simplicity, explanatory scope, etc. (but these are up to interpretation except perhaps predictive power) See Kuhn: plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn. Note that solipsism isn’t considered a scientific hypothesis by pretty much anyone since it can’t be tested
    – Baby_philosopher
    Commented Apr 6 at 18:52
  • I wonder if solipsism is more likely than the existence of other minds?
    – Arnold
    Commented Apr 6 at 18:53
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    You are now getting into the thorny issue of applying probabilities to metaphysical theories. But theories aren’t dice rolls :)
    – Baby_philosopher
    Commented Apr 6 at 18:55
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    I ask whether solipsism is more likely than the existence of other minds because solipsism is quantitatively simpler?
    – Arnold
    Commented Apr 6 at 18:58
  • "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein.
    – SystemTheory
    Commented Apr 6 at 20:39

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Your assessment is facile. You cannot simply assume that the existence of one thing is more likely than the existence of two, which seems to be your interpretation of Occam's razor. As for the two types of simplicity giving '50 percent each'- how on Earth do you justify that claim? Suppose there are 20 million houses in the UK. According to your logic, a theory that supposed they were all built by one builder should be as likely as a theory that supposed there were hundreds of thousands of builders, notwithstanding the fact that the former theory is plainly nonsense.

You are entirely wrong to assume that solipsism 'gets 50% probability for quantitative simplicity'. The logical basis for Occam's razor is that if you have a theory that requires n independent assumptions to be true, then the probability of it being true is the product of the probabilities of the assumptions. For each new assumption you add, the overall probability goes down. Nevertheless, a theory with five highly probable assumptions will still be more likely than a theory with one improbable assumption.

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  • And what is the probability of solipsism? Is there a generally accepted probability?
    – Arnold
    Commented Apr 6 at 22:05

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