Occam's razor
<p>Jul 03, 2011 09:53 AM
 
OCCAM's razor   lex parsimoniae... law of parsimony
 
the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions.
 
we should tend towards simpler theories until we can trade simplicity for increased explanatory power.
 
Bertrand Russelll version:  substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities.
 
14th centry English logician and theologican  Franciscan friar Wm of Occam.
 
In science  Occam's razor is a heuristic... not an irrefutable principle of logic.
 
2005:  Marcus Hutter...  shorter computable theories have more weight.
 
OCCAM:  Plurality must never be posited without necessity.
 
 
EVIDENTIAL SUPPORT  is obviously crucial!!!
 
Philosophy of MIND:
 
 
 
 
<b>ANTI_RAZORS </b>  (this section is quite good)
 
Walter of Chatton: 
 <b>"If three things are not enough to verify an affirmative proposition about things, a fourth must be added</b>, and so on
 
Italian motto:  ("Even if it is not true, it is well conceived
 
Leibnitz:  God created the most varied and populous of possible worlds
 
Kant:  the variety of beings should not be rashly diminished.
 
Karl Menger:  Entities must not be reduced to the point of inadequacy
It is vain to do with fewer what requires more.
 
Crabtree's Bludgeon:  cynical view:  no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which
some human intellect cannot conceive of a coherent explanation, however complicated.
 
the best explanation is not always the simplest...
 
Sherlock Holmes...  When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever reamins, however improbably, must be the truth."
 
 
 
 
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