This is carried over from this thread. I think this worth further discussion but did not want to take over the other thread.
Occam’s razor does not state “the simplest answer is most likely to be the correct one” although this is a popular (mis)translation of it. If this is what was stated, then it would be a proposition and therfore could have a truth value and could be refuted as has been claimed (although I’m still unclear how it would be self refuting even if it were a proposition).
Occam’s Razor is an imperitive, “Do not mulitply beyond necessity”. Imperitives are not propositions, they can have no truth value, so they cannot be refuted (as something must be false if it is refuted). They can be denied (“No, I want to multiply by 100x more than necessary”) but this is not the same as refuting, it is simply not going along with them.
Further more, it is impossible to have good reason to refuse to go along with Occam’s Razor. Why? The key words are “beyond necessity”. Most people take Occam’s Razor to merely be stating that the simple answers are correct ones. This is not true - this would be to drastically misuse this principle (something commonly done, as I stated in the previous thread). If you have some good cause not to choose the simplest answer, then Occam’s Razor does not apply to the situation - because you are multiplying as is necessary to fit the facts, not adding unneccessary articulations.
Take, for instance, Ptolomeic astronomy, a field of science often criticised for it’s ludicrous complexity. The orbit of the planets was posited to consist of two circles. Firstly, the planets would orbit around the earth in a circular motion. Then, there would be an epicycle on that orbit, so it orbited around the simple circular orbit as well. Often these epicycles, which seem absurd to modern observers, are said to be violating Occam’s Razor because they are an excessive multiplication.
This is not the case, however, as they were required to explain the movement of the planets. As the planets move at different speeds, and the earth is also orbiting and not stationary as they thought, the planets will overtake eachother, which make it appear like they are moving back on themselves in the sky. Thus the epicycles were needed to explain their movement - they did not multiply beyond necessity.
One final point. Occam’s razor ensures that you do not make assertions to which you have to cause to state, as I hope I have shown. This does not mean that your assertions are true. Indeed what you take to be beyond necessity is logically indeterminable - there is not way you can say for sure which factor is beyond necessity (the ptolomeics would say that the idea of an earth which moves is beyond necessity - it would have been thought a self-contradictory statement). What Occam’s Razor ensures is that you are JUSTIFIED. If you do multiply beyond necessity, you are making a claim which is unjustified. If you stick to the facts as you know them, and posit the minimum that is needed in order for those facts to all fit together, then it will be almost, if not totally, impossible for anyone to claim that you were unjustified in your statement, although still perfectly possible that you were wrong. This is why Occam’s Razor cannot genuinely be said to be refuting - such a statement doesn’t actually mean anything at all.