>> In saying that you are using Occam's Razor which is soley intended for distinguish two theories of identical explanatory value.

Is it? The Razor says "entities should not be multiplied without necessity" (see wikipedia). Assuming a third person is "multiplying entities without necessity". Any explanation that assumes a third person is "multiplying entities without necessity". So it should be cut by the Razor, meaning we don't need to consider it. It doesn't matter if there is no better explanation yet. Any explanation that doesn't assume a third person in the car will always be better than any explanation that assumes a third person in the car. So the Razor can indeed help us distinguish between likely explanations even when we haven't yet formulated those explanations.

Also, I'm curious- do you really think that if we don't have a good explanation then we're free to imagine anything we want? That's an obvious error of reasoning that you would have tried to avoid if you were aware of it, yet it really seems to me that this is what you're doing. Would you like to go over that for a bit?

Edit: I've edited this comment repeatedly to make it less contentious, like HN guidelines advice. I suggest we refrain from discussion of technicalities and avoid veering off into technical language, otherwise we'll just make this conversation even more tedious than it already is.

I explained to you what kind of epistemic tool the Razor is. There are plenty of other tools that let you make arguments about the likihood that there was an additional person present. You can't make that argument with that Razor.

If you would like a more detailed understanding of why the Razor is limited to this use, you'll have to out more effort into learning epistemology than perusing wikipedia. It is an interesting topic and worth your time and attention.

The sort version is that this is the only way to use the razor that increases the reliability of your epistemic process.

See, when I said that we should refrain from discussion of technicalities, the reason was to avoid the tactic you're employing now, of trying to "win" the conversation by saying I don't understand the Razor etc. This is an underhanded tactic that does not honour you and demeans me as your interlocutor.

You suggest I lack a detailed understanding of why the Razor is limited to a particular use. I pointed to wikipedia because it's a resource that is easy to access. According to wikipedia, then, the Razor says:

"Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity".

Do you disagree that this is the Razor?

I wasn't trying to win, I was trying to offer you an honest suggestion.

You do lack an understanding of Occam's Razor and I encourage you to go learn more about it. It simply cannot be used to rule out explanations like you are saying. It only provides a heuristic preference between explanations that make identical predictions.

Occam's Razor is an epistemic guideline that was originally formulated in the terms you specify, it is however a concept that has been widely discussed and refined beyond that original formulation.

If you aren't interested in going past reading on wikipedia, the article there does touch on the Razor's limitations even if it doesn't delve deeply into the reasoning behind them.

Even if you stretch Occam's Razor past it's limit and use it to establish preference between two theories that make different predictions but only about phenomenon that you personally can't practically check (i.e. a case such as this one), then you are still only establishing a preference for the "simpler" explanation and cannot actually rule out the other explanation without checking the difference in predictions (i.e. an investigation into the crash.)

So, to clarify, you disagree that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity" is the Razor?