Occam's razor. Cutting off excess

William Occam was one of the most popular philosophers of the fourteenth century. But modernity knows it only thanks to the authorship of the principle of simplicity. In one of his books he proposed to cut off all unnecessary complexity, leaving only the mandatory arguments. This principle is called "Occam's razor" and it sounds like this: "You do not need to multiply entities without necessity." In other words, he suggests, wherever possible, to make simple explanations without complicating them.

Limits of the Occam principle

The principle of Occam's razor is that reasoning should not be cluttered with unnecessary concepts and terms, if one can do without them. His wording changed countless times, but the meaning remained unchanged.

Written a lot of monographs on how the "razor Occam" operates. This principle has become as significant as the elimination of the third in logic or the theory of relativity in physics.

But is Occam's razor applicable in everyday life? Or can it be used only for scientific purposes? If we talk about the limits of the principle of simplicity, are such situations possible in science, when the economy of thinking does not bring the expected results? And is it always necessary to solve problems in life only as they are received?

Of course, such situations are quite real, since both science and our everyday life do not flow smoothly and smoothly. In some cases it is necessary to make special decisions on which the further course of vital or scientific events depends. And there comes a time when the obsolete theory is replaced by a completely new one. And at this time it is not necessary to solve problems with the help of "Occam's razor". Do not cut out the "extra", otherwise you'll miss something very important specifically for you or for humanity as a whole.

Hence, it can be concluded that "Occam's razor" is applicable in the case when qualitative changes are not expected in science and life.

An example of the application of Occam's formulation

A specialist in the history of philosophy of the Middle Ages Philotheus Bener in one of the editions of 1957 reports that the Occam Razor is mainly formulated by the author: "It is not necessary to affirm much without necessity." It is worth noting that William Ockham only voiced the principle of simplicity, known since the time of Aristotle. In logic, it is called the law of sufficient reason.

For an example of a situation to which the Occam principle can be applied, one can cite the answer given by the physicist and mathematician Laplace to Emperor Napoleon. Ostensibly the latter told the scientist that his theories did not have enough space for God. To which Laplace replied: "I did not need to consider this hypothesis."

If you reformulate the principle of simplicity and economy in the language of information, it will look like this: "The most accurate message is a short message".

This rule can be attributed to the current and to date requirements for the concretization of concepts. Each of the definitions used should be accurate to exclude the possibility of creating superfluous, pretending to be all-embracing.

In logic, saving the initial assumptions is that none of the accepted theses should follow from the others. That is, in the proof of the axiom there should not be superfluous statements that do not have a direct relation to it. Although this saving rule is not mandatory.