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The problem with Occam's razor is that there is no generally agreed-upon notion of simplicity. Occam himself believed it proved the existence of God, and only G

The problem with Occam's razor is that there is no generally agreed-upon notion of simplicity. Occam himself believed it proved the existence of God, and only God. After all, what did you need material reality for when it could be "explained" as God's dreams and imaginings? To Occam that was far "simpler" than the messy reality of matter, and the messy reality we know of today would have been anathema to him. "Simpler" theories are not ab initio more likely correct. The world is full of "simpler" theories that are wrong: the four elements, the caloric theory of heat, Newtonian dynamics and gravity, and so on. "Simpler" is a purely human notion, and a heavily culturally laden one at that. For this reason, Occam's razor is best left in the dust-heap of philosophy. It is never useful in doing actual science, except now and then by accident.

tagrun 12y ago
If you going to pick nits like amateur philosophers and don't like the name Occam's razor, let me put it in more direct terms less open to "weird" interpretations so that hopefully you'll see what I'm saying: "just because I can" is not a good justification to put unnecessary concepts in a theory. We already know about probability amplititudes and we do understand them quite well (path integral formulation). There is no need to introduce crazy things such as "negative probabilities" into the theory, because 1) it doesn't make sense as a fundamental concept (and it just isn't) 2) more importantly, it is not needed 3) and it doesn't add anything new to our understanding of nature or predicts anything at all.
yummyfajitas 12y ago
That's actually not correct. From what I can tell, most theories with god in them that also predict reality can all be converted to a simpler theory without god. The problem with all your examples is that Occams razor says "choose the simplest theory that works", not the simplest of all possible theories. I explored this idea in more detail here: http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/why_to_reject_complex_theories.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/why_to_reject_complex...
TeMPOraL 12y ago
Occam's razor doesn't say "pick the simplest theory", it says "pick the simplest theory out of all that agree with all discussed experimental evidence". We didn't throw away four elements because they weren't simple enough; we did it because that theory didn't explain the things we saw. As for the notion of simplicity itself, we have Kolmogorov complexity and Solomonoff induction, they capture the essence pretty well (though I heard that with some caveats).

tagrun 12y ago

If you going to pick nits like amateur philosophers and don't like the name Occam's razor, let me put it in more direct terms less open to "weird" interpretations so that hopefully you'll see what I'm saying: "just because I can" is not a good justification to put unnecessary concepts in a theory. We already know about probability amplititudes and we do understand them quite well (path integral formulation). There is no need to introduce crazy things such as "negative probabilities" into the theory, because 1) it doesn't make sense as a fundamental concept (and it just isn't) 2) more importantly, it is not needed 3) and it doesn't add anything new to our understanding of nature or predicts anything at all.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

That's actually not correct. From what I can tell, most theories with god in them that also predict reality can all be converted to a simpler theory without god. The problem with all your examples is that Occams razor says "choose the simplest theory that works", not the simplest of all possible theories. I explored this idea in more detail here: http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/why_to_reject_complex_theories.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/why_to_reject_complex...

TeMPOraL 12y ago

Occam's razor doesn't say "pick the simplest theory", it says "pick the simplest theory out of all that agree with all discussed experimental evidence". We didn't throw away four elements because they weren't simple enough; we did it because that theory didn't explain the things we saw. As for the notion of simplicity itself, we have Kolmogorov complexity and Solomonoff induction, they capture the essence pretty well (though I heard that with some caveats).