“Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate“
“Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora“
Either of these Latin sentences, loosely translated as “Plurality should not be posited without necessity“, are statements of the medieval English philosopher, logician and Franciscan monk William of Ockham (1285-1349 A.D. Ockham was the village in the English county of Surrey where he was born), and this principle is known as Occam’s (or Ockham’s) razor.
The razor is used to shave off unnecessary ideas from an inference in the stages of formation of a hypothesis. In simple terms, if there is no need for an idea to exist in your explanation of a concept, you should probably shave it off.
Occam’s razor was not an entirely new idea with William of Occam, though. It was a common principle in medieval philosophy but due to his frequent usage, his name became associated with it. Centuries earlier, Aristotle had said “Nature operates in the shortest way possible“, which is a simplistic rule of thumb that can work in some areas of observation (e.g. philosophy, physics and chemistry) but will fail woefully in some other complicated study areas like psychology and astrophysics / cosmogony where inexplicable cases can be expected at any point in time.
This principle is also known as the principle of economy or the parsimony principle. Like other Franciscan monks, towing the path of St. Francis of Assisi himself, William was a minimalist and he idealized a life of poverty and abstinence. This made him at loggerheads with the incumbent Pope, John XXII who excommunicated him when William used his razor to explain that “God’s existence cannot be deduced by reason alone“; and in turn William wrote a treatise telling people that the pope was a heretic.
It is unlikely that William will appreciate what people have been recently doing in his name. For instance, today many atheists often try to apply Occam’s razor in arguing against the existence of God (and some would even go as far as using the razor to shave off the entire spiritual realms), saying that God is an unnecessary hypothesis. Such analysis totally kicks against the goads of William’s intents; and I also firmly disagree with the atheists’ stand in this case.
In my opinion, just like Aristotle said and William of Occam agreed, “the more perfect a nature is, the fewer means it requires for its operations“. Thus at the most perfect pinnacle, there must be one necessary hypothesis (if there were none, then there would also be no hypotheses below that level of perfection). That necessary hypothesis tells of God’s existence as the necessary perfection, and this axiom can be appropriated by faith. Below that level of perfection, there will be other hypothesis but they must all be contingent upon something or the other, and work in conjunction with the necessary hypothesis. Going down from the pinnacle of perfection, more hypothesis will be required to describe natures.
Some historians, (of which Erich von Däniken is one of the most notorious proponents) question the capacity for ancient civilizations to have developed the art, social organization and technology that is attributed to them and rather believe that astronaut-aliens must have assisted them way back in the day. This is not impossible but it adds three pieces of contingent theories into a mix of plurality in history. First, we assume aliens exist. Second, we assume they came to earth. Third, we assume they assisted the ancient civilizations and then they never bothered coming back to say hi to us, their old friends (we won’t mind some out-of-this-world technology actually, and we’ll say thanks). The alternative theory is this: the ancient civilizations had intelligent people who came up with the theory. Occam’s razor to the rescue, and we’ll choose option two.
Also, depending on how you look at it, some brands of theism (which simply relate creation to a prime mover, God, and singularly say we can find that God by faith outside these realms) are a much simpler theory than atheism, which has to come up with theories such as evolution, and yet explain why the evolution happened the way it did, and what happened before the evolution began. Simplistic in truth, is the Occam’s razor.
Sometimes I’m about to logically judge a set of alternative ideas or suggestions. Then I apply Occam’s razor and I start to discard the unnecessaries. I think it’s a really good idea.
In summary, along most lines of reasoning, and until proved otherwise, the more complex theory competing with a much simpler explanation should have a reduced priority, but not totally discarded until proven false.
In words attributed to Einstein,
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
The Occam’s razor as a keyword was a random idea that popped into my head to blog about
16 Comments
Im glad to know people who think like I do
Ahhh… Another good one. Keep them comming!
I’m glad to know someone who thinks like you do
Me I’m just glad to know someone who thinks…
..Or wait! I think I’m actually glad I think I know someone.
Hiya.
I’ve read your posts a couple of times, but usually lose interest easily because it’s so difficult to navigate. There are no ‘previous or next post’ buttons; no list of blog posts also. Very cumbersome when trying to read different posts according to the timeline.
There is a list of categories, which has sub-categories, thereby making it a tiring process when looking for blog posts.
Dunno the website was design intentionally this way, but I’m sure you’ll get more hits if you did something about the navigation.
I’m sorry about the inconvenience you faced, Niyoola. I initially designed the site mainly for desktop use, but I have been making it more mobile-friendly (from your complaints I can infer that you are using a mobile phone). Thanks a lot for the feedback!
P.S. You can get a list of all the posts on the home page of the website.
Thanks for the feedback, people!
Occam’s razor? I’d be lying if I said I ever heard of it before now.
Funny how I’m reading this today after a friend and I had debated on the issue of collecting extra sheets at exams. In his opinion, wit is best appreciated when it’s as brief as possible, I argued that sometimes it’s best to lay all thoughts bare on paper so one may choose which best suits. I suppose I will be applying the razor henceforth.
@chinnydiva: Good one! Take note, though, Occam’s razor is just a heuristic device. It may not apply to all disciplines, or to the instance of the discipline that you are presently interested in.
Excellent! As always
“Often, the simplest explanation is the correct one”. I’ve heard this variant of the razor used before. As you noted, it is a heuristic but often correct device.
However, let’s go to a more complex issue. The one of selecting a faith. To be a christian, one must
1. Assume God exists
2. Assume the holy Trinity concept is true
3. Assume Jesus indeed was the true Son of God
4. Assume Jesus resurrected after death
5. Assume the disciples told the truth of the ressurection
(All these ‘assumptions’ are beliefs)
In this instance, Occams razor would favor the Jewish faith, No? Or any other monotheism which lacked convoluted pathways between man and God?
Based on this I generally avoid using Ooccams razor as a tool to explain any matter of faith as you have ‘sort of’ done here in arguing for God’s existence. For that is all they are. Matters of faith. You either believe or you don’t.
Thinktank has hit the nail on the head. Very well said, man! Faith is an entirely different world from the logic which is Occam’s razor’s domain! (YB)
What if we just posit the following:
1. God exists
2. He guided and inspired the compilation of the bible. In essence the bible is God’s word.
These seem to be adequate enough to be a Christian.
By the way, nice piece.
Well said.
This is something all lecturers should read because the university system is seriously lacking in pointing out that endless rants slightly touching the point should not be a substitute for high grades.
I was going to go on and on but..
Occam’s razor.
Today, I find that ideas about having a deity (assuming that’s the eventual topic of discussion here) are rarely simplistic and agnosticism.
There is faith/belief in a supreme being.
There is the admission of one’s inadequacies to understand all the facets of this almighty force.
What can be more simple?
Ace, you said: “In my opinion, just like Aristotle said and William of Occam agreed, “the more perfect a nature is, the fewer means it requires for its operations“. Thus at the most perfect pinnacle, there must be one necessary hypothesis (if there were none, then there would also be no hypotheses below that level of perfection). That necessary hypothesis tells of God’s existence as the necessary perfection, and this axiom can be appropriated by faith.”
You are extrapolating on an assumption–that there must be a perfect pinacle of nature. That is a huge assumption. Did Aristotle and William of Ockham claim or even hypothesize that there was a singular, perfect pinnacle of nature? It seemed to me their way of looking at and learning about the world consisted of observing, observing some more, and reasoning to develop knowledge. Look, think about what you saw, question it, think about what you need to see to answer those questions, continue. That’s science–the pursuit of knowledge.
You say that for Occam’s razor to be meaningful, there must be a perfect pinacle of nature–which can be “appropriated by faith”. That is your opinion. As far as scientific method goes, to appropriate any part of a scientific hypothesis by faith will render said hypothesis as unscientific. How can one test a hypothesis if a major part of that hypothesis will always be based on faith alone? Your logic does not work.
The physical universe does not rely on your or my faith to exist. To me, to ask questions like “Where did the universe come from? What’s the meaning of it all? Why am I here?” is purely mental masturbation. They are questions that have answers which you can neither prove nor disprove. If one were to attempt to apply Occam’s Razor to such questions, based on scientific process, one could answer them as “The universe didn’t ‘come from’ anywhere/anything–it’s always existed in one form or another. Now make me some bacon” than it is to say “an omnipotent deity created the universe… and on the 5th day… yada yada yada”.
Anyway, not picking on you. To each his/her own. Just pointing out where I think the wheels came off your argument.