November 29, 2006

Occam's Razor, rev 2006

Physics gives us the ability to apply mathematical relationships to physical properties. Manual Garcia demonstrates their application, with regard to the happenings earlier this century.

"The myths we construct to express our understanding of the realities we are immersed in are limited by the range of our knowledge.

Certainly, so long as there are more than two people on Earth, conspiracies will occur. But too often we invoke a conspiracy in constructing our story of the world because we lack specific information about the sciences, economics, history and other relevant fields of specialized knowledge. Experience has shown that if the evidence allows for several explanations to a given problem then the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is most probably correct. This principle is called Occam's Razor and is attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Occam (c. 1295-­1349) (2)."

1 comment:

Unknown said...

"Experience has shown that if the evidence allows for several explanations to a given problem then the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is most probably correct."

I've heard of Occam's Razor as basically, "the simplest explanation is the correct one." You provide a more reasonable description; saying "fewest assumptions" provides clarity to what is meant by "simplest."