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The author didn't name Occam's Razor, but she did touch on the idea that simplicity can be an unhelpful or ambiguous criteria to apply: "Usually when you are a
by wwweston 14y ago
The author didn't name Occam's Razor, but she did touch on the idea that simplicity can be an unhelpful or ambiguous criteria to apply:
"Usually when you are asked to continue a pattern the assumption is that you are supposed to choose the simplest way. But sometimes it is difficult to decide what the testers think the simplest way is. Can you replace the question mark with a number in the following sequence: 31, ?, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, … You might say that the answer is 30 as the numbers alternate; or, you might say that the answer is 28 as these are the days of the month."
This isn't to say that Occam's Razor isn't helpful -- it often is, if for no other reason than the fact that model/theory with fewer "moving parts" is simply easier to work with than another with more (and a similar level of explanatory power). Just that simplicity sometimes can't help or that it can be a value judgment.
- jmpeax 14y agoI think in this case simplicity does reveal the answer. I would put 30 because the sequence becomes a repeating sequences of 31, 30. Answering 28 requires making the assumption that the sequence of numbers represent days of the month, which has a higher information entropy making the sequence less simple.
- dwd 14y ago29 would be more valid in a leap year - so calendar days is far from simple and unambiguous.
- temac 14y agoCould you develop on how to mesure the information entropy in an absolute way?
- ShardPhoenix 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity
- temac 14y agoGiven the incomputability of Kolmogorov complexity, this concept is not usable as an absolute mesure.