Q&A: God Plays Dice and Occam’s Razor
God Plays Dice and Occam’s Razor
Question
Rabbi Michael, hello and greetings. In your book God Plays Dice, you wrote in Appendix B (at the beginning) an argument against Bickel (who opposed actualism and supported informativism): namely, that if in any case it is more reasonable, in the absence of a way to decide the dispute between actualism and informativism, it would seem that we should דווקא choose actualism, since the principle of Occam’s razor instructs us to choose the option in which the number of entities is as small as possible. My question is: according to that principle, wouldn’t it actually be preferable to go with informativism, because it tries to arrive at comprehensive theories and is much more “economical”?
2. In the book God Plays Dice, you wrote on page 92 that there are three types of evidence for the existence of God, and that Kant also classified them into three types of proof, whereas in the source you referred to, Kant seems to speak only about the moral proof. Does he prove only from morality, or does he have other proofs as well? The source you gave does not show any other proofs on Kant’s part. (The source: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, “The Transcendental Doctrine of Elements,” Part Two, Division Two, Book Three, especially chapters 3–6.)
Answer
- It is difficult to compare between the planes. On the one hand, going by what appears before our eyes is preferable, since the alternative is to invent concepts and principles (and that is extravagant). On the other hand, on the explanatory plane it is indeed more comprehensive, and therefore more economical.
- I didn’t understand. In Critique of Pure Reason he speaks only about those three types, not about the moral proof. That appears in his other writings (see here in the fourth notebook, part 3).