Occam's razor is unjustified, so why accept it?
Occam's razor says that if we have a choice between a simple answer and a compound one, we should pick the simple one.
It's widely accepted even though it actually has no justification. It's acceptance seems to come down to its intuitive or aesthetic appeal. Is that enough? Or should we just reject it?
It's widely accepted even though it actually has no justification. It's acceptance seems to come down to its intuitive or aesthetic appeal. Is that enough? Or should we just reject it?
Comments (49)
Preferring something for aesthetic reasons is a justification...
Hence Occam's Razor is justified.
Occams razor is based on the fact that truth/reason for something is often less extravagant, requires less reasoning, imagination and hop-scotching around than semi truths, or downright lies do.
The only thing you need to catch a liar is a rigorous enquiry, because to construct a continuous alternative narrative takes a lot of weighing, measuring, reasoning and accounting to prevent paradoxes and contradictions from revealing your lie.
The truth on the other hand is easy. It's natural and it sticks to basic straightforward path. It's not creative. It's factual.
But simplicity and complexity are equally appealing. One can be just as beautiful as the other. There's no accounting for taste.
This is Islamic:
Scandinavian:
Quoting Wikipedia
This makes sense to me.
If you look at the way your body maintains your blood pressure, it's pretty complex.
Are you saying that because this answer is complex, it must be wrong?
Methodologically the hypothesis with fewer assumptions is easier to work with. But it is not thereby true. So choosing the simplest hypothesis is an expression of an aesthetic favouring laziness....
So why the appeal of Occam's razor? What's the draw?
No of course not. But biologists and physiologists occamed it up to isolate each component and see what happens when it's removed, or more is added, or what it reacts with and what they make.
In essence they deconstructed blood pressure into its individual parts so they could build the full picture of how it works in its entirety.
That isn't to say the full complex compound answer isn't correct but it's much harder to jump to that conclusion than to take a step by step approach.
Also, if you think the baroreceptor reflex is complex, there's the hormones, fluid volume/electrolyte balance as well to factor in before blood pressure reveals all of its cogs and wheels.
Agreed. A lot would depend on the assumptions used and their relative plausibility.
Quoting Banno
There's more to it than that. The more assumptions, i.e. unproven data inputs, the more likely one of them is wrong.
Why not appeal of Occam's razor? Pick the pretty flower, pick the short hypothesis.
This is a hay man or straw dog, or whatever you call it. It has nothing to do with the complexity of the system being described. it's the complexity of the unjustified inputs.
Ah... an argument from statistics.
On the other hand, the hypothesis with the most assumptions is the most falsifiable. If, the more assumptions, the more likely that one of them is wrong, and if we ought prefer falsifiable hypotheses, we ought prefer the more complex ones. Hence falsificationists ought reject parsimony. :wink:
But further, determining the number of assumptions is a question of interpretation, subject to how the hypothesis in question is expressed. For example, is that this thread is in English one of the assumptions of this argument? Where do we draw the line between what is a relevant hypothesis and what isn't?
That is, even expressed in statistical terms, the preference is aesthetic.
I guess as long as that's the spirit in which people embrace Occam's razor, it's ok. Like: eeny meeny miny moe, pick the theory whose complexity is low.
Edit: We might add that it is worth noting that the choice of hypothesis is not final; we can modify that choice based on further data. So if a prettier flower comes along, we can drop the old one and pick the new one. Parsimony is one part of a method that involves ongoing interaction with each other and with the world, not the final determinate.
Is that the approach to things that works best for you? Breaking things down to simple parts?
The cardiovascular system needs to looked at as a whole because it's self regulating, as if each part is performing a duty to the whole. If you get lost in the details, you could miss the awesomeness of the whole thing. Maybe that's my aesthetic preference?
Never thought of it that way.
I don't disagree that using statistical reasoning is not a strong argument.
I think I've seen it used as a reason to discard a thesis. I think you agree that it doesn't provide a justification for that. It's a bad idea to play favorites prior to getting experimental results. If you can't experiment, you have to be satisfied with not knowing.
To be frank, Frank, I think it's equally important to view it as a holistic system and to explore its individual parts in isolation.
Just as its important to review the performance of a car as a unit - all of its functions used in test drives, as it is to examine each part: the brake system, the engine, the catalytic converter, chassis, aesthetic features, electronics etc.
To know something is to know how it behaves as a compound thing, as well as to understand the relationships between its individual components. If you dismantle a car and then put it back together, you're likely to "know what a car is" better than someone who has just driven a lot of them.
Both have their place in the knowledge of any subject.
It's a matter of scope. Specialists have a narrow particular scope and expertise in one area whilst others deal with the holistic/general overview.
Both are required to explore the knowledge of any discipline.
Occams razor is a useful approach. But it only elucidate part of the information.
Occam disagreed, sort of. He believed that there are no "compound things.". He would say the "car" only exists as an idea that humans use to group things for their purposes. There is no car out there in the world, only isolated, individual things. He was a kind of atomist, or proto-nominalist.
This is the basis of his belief that explanations must be as simple as possible. If you start explaining things in complex terms, using compound objects, you're really just off in the realm of imagination, not describing the world as it is.
Do you agree with that?
Yet...
Quoting frank
Occams Razor: the principle that says the fewer ways there are to make a mistake, the easier it is to correct it.
Id accept that principle.
KISS?
Yep. But be careful; I hear Gene and the guys are particularly defensive regarding their brand.
:grin:
One can say that gravity pulls apples to the ground.
Or one can say that given the universe we are an in, and the planet we find ourselves in, plus the properties of apples all combine such that it follows, that in the vast majority of circumstances, gravity on Earth pulls apples to the ground given ordinary conditions, because a hurricane might complicate the process.
Both are true, one is simpler. But sometimes we cannot simplify more than we'd like.
I don't know, Schopenhauer said Kant intentionally obscured some of his writing to avoid criticism from the church. And was it Derrida who supposedly said that the only way to make it as a French philosopher is to convolute your writing?
It's likely, or at least it wouldn't surprise me. But one can explain the basics of Kant without much trouble.
That was Foucault. Derrida claimed that he never fell into that temptation to write more obscurely for the sake of profundity. Clearly, he wasn't being honest.
:up:
The above principle can only be applied non-controversially when a supplementary argument is given to justify why the theories are described in the way they are, for otherwise the description lengths assigned to each candidate theory is arbitrary. E.g a diagonal straight line is only 'simpler' than a diagonal sine wave when the coefficients of both lines are given in terms the Standard Basis corresponding to the Cartesian axes. But the opposite is true when both lines are described in terms of a Fourier basis.
Quoting Manuel
Which goes towards explaining what Occams razor actually is; the principle of Occam's razor is our post-hoc revision of our linguistic conventions in response to our observations, so that our language encodes our most validated theories as efficiently as possible. Occam's razor shouldn't be mistaken for an a priori principle of inference, rather it should be understood to be a prescription for revising our linguistic conventions so that our past-conditioned expectations are easier to communicate and describe.
I see what you are saying, I'd add that it's not linguistics solely, but also conceptual. By expressing ourselves in a clear and concise manner, the information or data we are presenting is more easily understood than in some other, more technical or obscure manner.
Understanding is not limited to language, I don't think. But, point taken.
The hitch seems to have been forgotten though...
...so long as there is no loss in explanatory power, the simplest explanation is the best.
Sounds reasonable.
Quoting creativesoul
It makes sense that the fewer barriers to something being true, the more likely it is to be true.
It is commonly used against belief in god, but I don't see how there are any barriers to something that has no cause.
That does not make much sense to me. What sort of barriers are you referring to?
Occam's razor is commonly used against the explanation "God did it".
Quoting creativesoul
As you've alluded to, Ockham's Razor has a qualification that "all things being equal" the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
Let's say, just for the purpose of my argument, the evidence for a panpsychist and emergent view of consciousness is equal. There would be nothing getting in the way of panpsychism developing, as it has always been there, but for emergence there are barriers, such as the possibility that inanimate matter would never reach awareness, and further that consciousness would not be preferable for evolution (which many scientific tests are hinting at). There will be other barriers I can't even imagine to inanimate matter somehow becoming aware. It would be simpler to say it has always been there, and thus has no barriers to it becoming reality. The panpsychism has to have always been there for there to be symmetry with my argument about God.
All things being equal, God as always existing would have no more barriers, and is no less likely to exist than universe/s always existing.
Perhaps, but it does invoke an extra entity.
Why?