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Debate Score:19
Arguments:18
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Do you agree with the principle of Occam's Razor?

I have run across serveral uses of Occam's Razor in movies or fictional works, but have never seen it cited in a real debate.

Do you agree with Occam's Razor?

Do you believe it is a good default choice?

Would you ever cite Occam's Razor in a debate?

 

The following is from Wikipedia:

Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor and in Latin lex parsimoniae) is a problem-solving principle devised by William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher and theologian. The principle states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.

The application of the principle can be used to shift the burden of proof in a discussion. However, Alan Baker, who suggests this in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is careful to point out that his suggestion should not be taken generally, but only as it applies in a particular context, that is: philosophers who argue in opposition to metaphysical theories that involve allegedly “superfluous ontological apparatus”.[a] Baker then notices that principles, including Occam’s Razor, are often expressed in a way that is not clear regarding which facet of “simplicity” — parsimony or elegance — is being referred to, and that in a hypothetical formulation the facets of simplicity may work in different directions: a simpler description may refer to a more complex hypothesis, and a more complex description may refer to a simpler hypothesis.

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2 points

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mecken

No I don't, it's much better to admit you don't know than go for an assumption or guess when you don't have evidence. Too many bad things come out of people looking for the simple answer to stuff.

1 point

The principle states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.

No I do not agree with this approach to selection between competing hypotheses. In the absence of certainly, there still remains the rigorous examination of the assumptions to test their validity.

GenericName(3430) Clarified
4 points

To be fair, Occam's Razor, when correctly applied, is that the theory that relies on the most assumptions is the most LIKELY to be correct, not that we should assume it is. That would mean we would still employ rigorous examination.

For example, there is a cup of water next to me. If it fell over, we could assume that either I did something to knock it over, or that ghosts exist and that one was within my apartment and, for some reason, took its vengeance out upon the glass. We can safely assume that it is far more likely that I did something to knock it over, but we could still examine my actions to ensure that was indeed the case.

daver(1771) Disputed
1 point

the theory that relies on the most assumptions is the most LIKELY to be correct,

Woops you got that backwards

ProLogos(2793) Disputed
1 point

There is currently no presented way, to determine the likeliness of a ghost doing something.

Just because something sounds far fetched, doesn't mean that it's unlikely.

I think its definitely true about everyday life things. Is it true about the economy, war, politics, etc.? How about theoretical physics. I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying what's the extent of its accuracy?

I think its definitely true in that if you hear something fall next to you bed, its likely that it came from something like you shaking the bed than an Earthquake that you slept through and work up at the end of, etc.

Noxter(92) Disputed
1 point

Theoretical physics, especially QFT does not plays with same rules as we do but for general use Occam's razor is quite good.

The thing that I never liked about Occam's Razor is the implication that life is simple. If one can utilize it without falling into this trap, or without taking it as some kind of law, then yes, it often proves to be accurate.

1 point

I believe that in most cases applying this principle will result in a satisfactory, correct answer. This would apply to much of life, like everyday things (see GenericName's argument), but not to all of life, such as politics, romance, religion, etc. where it is common to have red herrings and other such objects of misdirection or interpretive implications.

I agree with the principle of Occam's Razor insofar as it applies to prioritizing what order to test hypotheses with.

I also agree with the principle of Occam's Razor when a decision needs to be made immediately, and no time is available to further investigate any hypotheses.

Particularly compelling cases may override Occam's Razor in these scenarios.

I draw the line at using it in an argument, though. It is poorly understood by many, particularly what does and does not constitute "simple," and trying to explain it with the "assumptions" angle is often fruitless- if only because any position is making a vast number of de facto assumptions such that the back and forth there will never end, opening the argument as to what assumptions are "safe" and what aren't, etc. Occam's Razor is a simple observation of probability, that simpler explanations have more frequently been held to be accurate.

My observations suggest that most using Occam's Razor in an argument are using it to dismiss the other persons position entirely, and Occam's Razor simply doesn't do that; it's merely probability extrapolated from statistics. As such, most who understand Occam's Razor would be redundant in citing it in an argument, as they would already be asserting their positions to be the more likely ones, and both sides are only speculating when it is employed anyway. It can be used more 'correctly' in addition to other points, to demonstrate on a meta level that comparatively few assumptions/guesses are being made- but such usage seems rare from where I stand.

Occam's Razor is against science, as we should rely instead on mathematical formulas.

1 point

I disagree. the simplest answer doesn't require much thought so if everyone always goes for the simplest answer it won't require much thought and barely anyone will ever think anything again and will mostly just be overactive and hyper. and I think if someone was to always choose the simplest answer on a multiple choice question test they would get a lot of the answers wrong lol.

1 point

Occam's razor is often incorrectly summarized as the logical preference for simplicity, however this is not what Occam's razor states. Occam's razor states "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", and this is indeed a reliable principle of deduction.

The principle of Occam's razor, in its typical formulation, is a useful but crude heuristic, with some practical consequence, but little logical connection to truth. To build an argument on it would be an error.

Fortunately, since Occam, we have seen a trend of reformulating the razor into ever more useful heuristics, following along with the development of natural philosophy and then philosophy of science. This progression reached its pinnacle with Ray Solomonoff and his theory of algorithmic probability. Though not a particularly practical tool, the "Solomonoff prior" or, somewhat more cheekily, "Solomonoff's lightsaber," represents a logically rigorous theory which connects complexity to probability (and, as a consequence, to truth.)

Where Occam discussed pluralities of entities (he was primarily concerned with arguing for monotheism over polytheism) and later philosophers like Russel discussed the distinction between otherwise-known or otherwise-unknown explanations (a more useful tool than Occam's though still poorly formalized), Solomonoff's theory revolves around descriptive complexity.

To offer a very short, very high level overview of the notion, hypotheses which can be described--fully specified--with less information are more likely to be true than hypotheses which require more information to be fully specified, their relationship to the available evidence (the likelihood of the evidence on each of them, respectively) being equal. In essence, this allows us to place a rational distribution over hypothesis spaces prior to any particular set of data. This is a mathematically provable feature of probability theory (under the Coxian interpretation, if you're wondering where that "true" bit comes from).

So, do I agree with the principle of Occam's Razor? Sort of. As Occam stated it, no. I don't. It is effectively worthless. However, different formulations of the razor have different utilities and epistemic weight, and their epistemic weight increases the more closely they approximate Solomonoff's theory of algorithmic probability.