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#5534·Dennis HackethalOP revised about 20 hours agoWhen variations are given for both competing explanations, the user is none the wiser which variation of the ‘better’ explanation he should adopt. There’s no clear preference:
Whenever a wide range of variant theories can account equally well for the phenomenon they are trying to explain, there is no reason to prefer one of them over the others, so advocating a particular one in preference to the others is irrational.
#5526 is an example. Even ignoring the obviously false outcome, which I caused for illustrative purposes, we don’t know which variation of the better explanation to prefer.
I don't think the program needs to choose one of the surviving variants if our current knowledge gives us no reason to choose.
If several variants of the better explanation still work and we currently have nothing that differentiates them, then I think it's fine for them to remain competing possibilities. In fact, my guess is that this is exactly how different research programs can get started: people can follow the different explanatory threads until further criticism, experiments, observations, or other new knowledge gives us a reason to distinguish them.
So I don't think the program should invent a preference between variants when our current problem situation and knowledge don't provide one. Sometimes the rational state really is that we don't yet know which variant is right. We can continue developing and testing them until we find something that differentiates them.