Ockham's Razor

[dingdao]

William of Ockham (13th century, excommunicated) is famous for “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.”
This is usually interpreted as "simplest is best". At the time it meant "don't use more angels than you need". (Just ask any of his contemporaries, who were obsessed with pin heads.)

Einstein proved that this is not absolute. If Special Relativity fits the bill, why were we even entertaining the idea of General Relativity?

I would like to see formal limits.

 

[Skwim]

William of Ockham (13th century, excommunicated) is famous for “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.”
This is usually interpreted as "simplest is best". At the time it meant "don't use more angels than you need". (Just ask any of his contemporaries, who were obsessed with pin heads.)

Einstein proved that this is not absolute. If Special Relativity fits the bill, why were we even entertaining the idea of General Relativity?

I would like to see formal limits.

General relativity takes the effects of gravity into consideration, special relativity does not.

.

 

[shunyadragon]

William of Ockham (13th century, excommunicated) is famous for “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.”
This is usually interpreted as "simplest is best". At the time it meant "don't use more angels than you need". (Just ask any of his contemporaries, who were obsessed with pin heads.)

Einstein proved that this is not absolute. If Special Relativity fits the bill, why were we even entertaining the idea of General Relativity?

I would like to see formal limits.

Ockham's Razor has never been absolute. On the other hand it is one of the most misused and abused principles ever, because of it's vagueness.There are no formal limits, because it is an informal principle.

 

[dingdao]

General relativity takes the effects of gravity into consideration, special relativity does not.

.

Special Relativity provided suitable answers for the problems then noted with Classical Physics. Absolutely no problems requiring the inclusion of gravity existed back then.

 

[Revoltingest]

William of Ockham (13th century, excommunicated) is famous for “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.”
This is usually interpreted as "simplest is best". At the time it meant "don't use more angels than you need". (Just ask any of his contemporaries, who were obsessed with pin heads.)

Einstein proved that this is not absolute. If Special Relativity fits the bill, why were we even entertaining the idea of General Relativity?

I would like to see formal limits.

Occam's Razor (another spelling) is simply about preference
for the simplest workable explanation for a phenomenon.
It isn't a law. It isn't vague. It doesn't need regulation or modification.
Tis just the paring away of that which adds no usefulness to a theory/model.

 

[bobhikes]

William of Ockham (13th century, excommunicated) is famous for “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.”
This is usually interpreted as "simplest is best". At the time it meant "don't use more angels than you need". (Just ask any of his contemporaries, who were obsessed with pin heads.)

Einstein proved that this is not absolute. If Special Relativity fits the bill, why were we even entertaining the idea of General Relativity?

I would like to see formal limits.

Its actually a weird quote that many people use to cut others off today but if we used as a law in the 13th century none of the complexities of today's world will exist. A horse is far simpler than a car. Why would we need planes or spaceships?

 

[ChristineM]

Its actually a weird quote that many people use to cut others off today but if we used as a law in the 13th century none of the complexities of today's world will exist. A horse is far simpler than a car. Why would we need planes or spaceships?

Have you ever taken a horse apart? ;-)

 

[Twilight Hue]

William of Ockham (13th century, excommunicated) is famous for “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.”
This is usually interpreted as "simplest is best". At the time it meant "don't use more angels than you need". (Just ask any of his contemporaries, who were obsessed with pin heads.)

Einstein proved that this is not absolute. If Special Relativity fits the bill, why were we even entertaining the idea of General Relativity?

I would like to see formal limits.

I think Occam's razor is far underrated given that the most complex tends to be comprised of the simplest or at least simpler components.

I think it's when we discover what we thought was simple , turns out later in reality to be complex in its own right, necessitating one to further break things down into simpler terms once again.

I wonder if that's why it's not absolute from a philosophical standpoint.

 

[bobhikes]

Have you ever taken a horse apart? ;-)

Using Ockham's razor why would I?

 

[ChristineM]

Using Ockham's razor why would I?

A horse is far simpler than a car.

Just had me considering if you had compared

 

[Polymath257]

Special Relativity provided suitable answers for the problems then noted with Classical Physics. Absolutely no problems requiring the inclusion of gravity existed back then.

Not true. The current theory of gravity at the time had instantaneous action at a distance, which was a violation of SR. Because of that, the dynamical laws needed to be revised and *that* lead to, after a few steps, general relativity.

As for their being no problems requiring the inclusion of gravity, the outstanding issue of the perihelion of Mercury was one that Newtonian physics was not able to solve. that this problem was solved while also generalizing SR was a huge boost for GR. Then, of course, the other observational evidence came out showing it to be a good theory that was more precise than the older Newtonian theory.

 

[dfnj]

William of Ockham (13th century, excommunicated) is famous for “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.”
This is usually interpreted as "simplest is best".

The thing is nothingness doesn't exist. Since somethingness exists, everything has been effed up. Energy and matter existing at all is a violation of the law of conservation of energy. There is no "simplest" explanation to our existential questions. As far as I can tell, there are no limits to this mystery.

I think for the BIG questions, the more complicated the answer is probably best because it leaves no room to having any other answer more complex.

 

[ChristineM]

The thing is nothingness doesn't exist. Since somethingness exists, everything has been effed up. Energy and matter existing at all is a violation of the law of conservation of energy. There is no "simplest" explanation to our existential questions. As far as I can tell, there are no limits to this mystery.

I think for the BIG questions, the more complicated the answer is probably best because it leaves no room to having any other answer more complex.

Possibly no quite true. There are hypothesis to suggest the universe came from nothing.

Here is one.

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing

So to say "nothingness doesn't exist" is not necessarily true, it may be, but we just don't know at this time.

 

[shunyadragon]

Possibly no quite true. There are hypothesis to suggest the universe came from nothing.

Here is one.

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing

So to say "nothingness doesn't exist" is not necessarily true, it may be, but we just don't know at this time.

The scientific concept of 'nothing' is not in reality nothing, and cannot be described as absolutely nothing from the philosophical/theological perspective.

 

[ChristineM]

The scientific concept of 'nothing' is not in reality nothing, and cannot be described as absolutely nothing from the philosophical/theological perspective.

I assume you have not read the paper i linked to

The philosophical/theological perspective is irrelevant

 

[Polymath257]

The thing is nothingness doesn't exist. Since somethingness exists, everything has been effed up. Energy and matter existing at all is a violation of the law of conservation of energy. There is no "simplest" explanation to our existential questions. As far as I can tell, there are no limits to this mystery.
.

Well, you do have to state the conservation laws correctly to fully understand them. For example, the conservation of energy does NOT say that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. That is a very common way of conveying the meaning of it, but it is wrong in detail.

The *actual* conservation law is closer to this: If energy neither enters nor leaves a region, then the energy in the region at one time is the same as the energy in the region at any other time.

There are extensions dealing with the case where energy does enter or leave (just keep track of how much goes in and how much goes out: they have to balance.)

The biggest problem with applying this to the origin of the universe is that time itself is part of the universe. Notice how the statement talks about two *times*. That automatically puts the whole law *inside* of the universe. You cannot compare the amount of energy at one time and a 'timeless existence' (whatever that means).

Now, this doesn't solve the deeper mystery why there is anything rather than nothing (why does the universe exist?), but it does resolve the issue of energy conservation.

 

[dingdao]

The thing is nothingness doesn't exist. Since somethingness exists, everything has been effed up. Energy and matter existing at all is a violation of the law of conservation of energy. There is no "simplest" explanation to our existential questions. As far as I can tell, there are no limits to this mystery.

I think for the BIG questions, the more complicated the answer is probably best because it leaves no room to having any other answer more complex.

There is philosophical school of thought that maintains that this is all a mutual dream. Any idea what that school is? It sounds like a perfect candidate for an -ism. I would put it in the running for the "religions who don't have it quite right" contest. Who knows we might have a winner.

 

[sealchan]

William of Ockham (13th century, excommunicated) is famous for “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.”
This is usually interpreted as "simplest is best". At the time it meant "don't use more angels than you need". (Just ask any of his contemporaries, who were obsessed with pin heads.)

Einstein proved that this is not absolute. If Special Relativity fits the bill, why were we even entertaining the idea of General Relativity?

I would like to see formal limits.

In an entropic Universe, elegance (aka Ockham's Razor) is wisdom. But it seems that at any level of physical phenomena, there are edge cases that grow into fundamental insights into other areas of reality outside of the system under the spotlight. It seems that Ockham's Razor is a very useful guideline that is always broken as knowledge increases.

 

[shunyadragon]

In an entropic Universe, elegance (aka Ockham's Razor) is wisdom. But it seems that at any level of physical phenomena, there are edge cases that grow into fundamental insights into other areas of reality outside of the system under the spotlight. It seems that Ockham's Razor is a very useful guideline that is always broken as knowledge increases.

I consider Occam's razor only useful in a thought process considering alternatives in problem solving issues. Regardless if a hypothesis works or does not it is science that makes the determination..