Hey everybody, welcome back to Explain Lackam 5, the podcast where we take the questions you always want to ask and talk about them in a way that's easy to understand. We are your hosts, I'm Tim. Hey, I'm Kevin. So Kevin, today we're talking about a phrase that you often read about on the internet and see around the place, but it's often poorly explained or misunderstood, and the phrase is Occam's Razor.
So what is Occam's Razor? Can we explain Lackam 5? Yeah, yeah, it is often very confusing. So the term Occam's Razor, it's often misstated as something like, the simplest answer is the correct one.
And this actually leads to all sorts of confusion. A few better statements here could be, the simplest answer is the best starting point to investigate, or something even similar like, the simplest sufficient answer is the best. Or given, you know, two equally valid explanations for something, the simpler explanation is usually the better one. If the simpler explanation is later found to be flawed, then it should be rejected in favor of the other one.
So Occam's Razor is not saying favor simplicity over something like the truth. I see. So in summary, it is not making things more complicated than they need to be, but still looking for the truth. Exactly.
A separate way to explain Occam's Razor is the idea that you should not multiply entities beyond necessity. If it is necessary for the answer to be more complex in order to be complete, then that's fine. Just don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. So the idea is that the more different variables or assumptions that have to add up to get to the overall solution, then the more difficult it is to really investigate, and the less likely it is to occur in general.
So that's why people often define Occam's Razor as the problem-solving principle that, quote, entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. That's the real classical way to say it. I like that definition. That makes things a lot clearer.
Now, some definitions of Occam's Razor say something like, if you hear hooves, don't think of zebras. What's going on there? Why do people always bring that up? Yes, that's a great canonical example that people usually give.
So the classic description here goes, you hear some hoof beats outside. Is it a horse or is it a zebra? Well, unless you live in the African savannah, it's very unlikely to be a zebra. We need more assumptions to really get there, you know?
Like, maybe a zebra was imported to a local zoo and it escaped captivity and now it's that doesn't mean that it cannot be a zebra, it just means that you should probably start at, you know, a horse and investigate from there. So can you explain where the whole term comes from in the first place? Who is Occam? Yeah, sure.
Occam comes from a guy named William of Occam, who was a 13th to 14th century English Franciscan friar and scholar who contributed hugely to medieval logics and physics, although he never used these words exactly and his surname was also spelled differently. And why is it his razor? Oh, yes, it is. So the reason it's called a razor is because in philosophy, a razor is a principle or rule of thumb that allows one to eliminate or rather shave off unlikely explanations for a phenomenon or avoid unnecessary actions.
So here, Occam's razor is a philosophical razor that advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should select a solution with the fewest assumptions. There's also something called Occam's broom, a lot less popular, but what is the difference between Occam's razor and Occam's broom? Oh, so Occam's broom is actually a play on Occam's razor invented by Sidney Brenner that states inconvenient facts are ignored or swept under the rug by the intellectually dishonest. That is interesting.
Now, Occam's razor itself over the years has also come into some opposition from people who say it's too extreme or too rash, isn't that right? Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a guy named Walter Chatton who was a contemporary of William Occam who actually took exception to Occam's razor and Occam's use of it. And in response, he devised his own anti-raiser.
If three things are not enough to verify an affirmative proposition about things, well, then a fourth one must be added. That is very much anti-Occam's razor. Now, finally, there are other philosophical razors out there, and I feel like we should end by sharing some of the other ones. Sure, sure.
You know, my favorite is Alder's razor, which is also known as Newton's flaming laser sword. And basically, it says that if a debate cannot be settled by observation or science, then it's not worth debating. That's a good one. I thought you were going to end, though, with the duck test.
Oh, the duck test. Yes, people should also know about the duck test. Let's end with that one. So the duck test is a classification, actually, based on observable evidence.
It sounds fancy, and it is a form of a whole category of logic called abductive reasoning. But it's famous because of its much simpler expression, right? Oh, yes. And that goes, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
What a nice way to end. Did you learn something new? If you did, send us an email. We are at eli5thepodcast at gmail.com.
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