Ockham’s Fairy

Is believing in the existence of fairies a rational view? Of course not, but why? Rational views are justifiable. They are supported by evidence or reason. IOW they have rational justification. But there is no evidence or sound argument that supports the existence of fairies. This is why believing in fairies is not a rational outlook.

The thing is though, there are several positions that even supposed competent scientists believe in that are wholly unjustifiable. For example:

Positive Atheism: the belief that God doesn’t exist.

While there are strong arguments against certain religious depictions of God such as the problem of evil refuting the religious idea of omnibenevolence, there are absolutely no sound arguments against the idea of a Supreme Being (God) itself.

Strong Emergence: the belief that certain phenomena are specially pled to be exceptions to the rule that emergent phenomena must be reducible to a system’s component parts.

Many scholars proclaim that mental phenomena are the result of brain processes, they cannot in any way justify this belief. This is blind faith not reductionism.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): the belief that a system can perform any cognitive task a human can, with high adaptability.

Many AI researchers proclaim that AGI is right around the corner often coinciding with their need for more funding. This position however is purely speculation with no way to gauge when or even if AGI can be acheived.

Like Ockham’s Razor, Ockham’s Fairy provides a simple way to reject ridiculous explanations. If an explanation has as much rational justification as the existence of fairies does, it’s just as likely to be true.