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#5580·Dennis HackethalOP, about 4 hours agoBeing hard to vary also doesn't guarantee that an explanation is true.
Agreed, but I’m not asking for a guarantee. I’m basically saying preference formation using HTV should help us find truth. The Pop-Tart example seems to be a case where HTV is unrelated to finding truth.
How does this show that HTV is unrelated to finding truth?
You say:
But guess 1 and 2 are plausible and I see no reason to prefer one over the other.
That's exactly how I see it. Before looking up the historical evidence, both seem like good explanations given what we know. So HTV giving us no preference between them seems like the right result at that point.
Once we acquire new knowledge that distinguishes them, the problem situation changes, as I explained in #5562.
I don't see why HTV failing to distinguish two good explanations before we have the knowledge that distinguishes them means it's unrelated to truth.