A ball at the top of a hill will roll down in order to be at the point of minimum potential energy. Physicists use Occam’s razor in the knowledge that they can rely on everything to use the minimum energy necessary to function. This facet of the second law of thermodynamics states that wherever possible, the use of energy is minimized. For example, the principle of minimum energy supports Occam’s razor. Science and math offer interesting lessons that demonstrate the value of simplicity. It works best as a mental model for making initial conclusions before the full scope of information can be obtained. Occam’s razor can be used in a wide range of situations, as a means of making rapid decisions and establishing truths without empirical evidence. In other words, we should avoid looking for excessively complex solutions to a problem, and focus on what works given the circumstances. In simpler language, Occam’s razor states that the simplest explanation is preferable to one that is more complex. Occam’s razor can be summarized as follows:Īmong competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. A philosophical razor is a tool used to eliminate improbable options in a given situation. Occam’s razor (also known as the “law of parsimony”) is a problem-solving principle which serves as a useful mental model. “Some consider this ceaseless, bewildering proliferation of universes to be the antithesis of William of Ockham’s principle of economy." Others believe "the Many Worlds Interpretation accounts for all the observations without the added assumption of collapse of the wavefunction … is preferable – according to Occam’s razor – to the alternatives.Occam’s razor is one of the most useful, (yet misunderstood,) models in your mental toolbox to solve problems more quickly and efficiently. “It’s a testament to scientists’ confusion about Occam’s razor that it has been invoked both to defend and to attack the ,” Ball notes. The only problem? Nobody can agree on which of the two hypotheses is simpler. On the face of it, this is exactly the kind of situation where Ockham’s razor would apply. There are competing theories, sure: some say it’s due to wavefunction collapse, while others prefer the many-worlds theory – but until we invent some kind of Into The Spider-Verse type universe collapser, we’re never going to know which is true. “Yet in practice we see just a single outcome.”īut what happens to change a superposition of probabilities into one observable outcome? The answer is: nobody knows. “The theory predicts not what will happen in a quantum experiment or observation, but only what the probabilities of the various outcomes are,” he wrote. Once more research was done and more evidence brought to light, however, new theories emerged based on the new information.” What does Ockham’s razor not say?įor another limitation of Ockham’s razor, we need only turn to that Most Famously Weird of subjects: quantum physics.Īs a scientific model, “quantum mechanics works exceedingly well but there is still no agreement on what it tells us about the fundamental fabric of reality,” science writer and journalist Philip Ball explained in The Atlantic back in 2016. “It was used to accept simplistic (and initially incorrect) explanations for meteorites, ball lightning, continental drift, atomic theory, and DNA as the carrier of genetic information. “While Occam's razor is a useful tool, it has been known to obstruct scientific progress at times,” Borowski pointed out. Even if it were, it bears repeating: Ockham’s razor proves nothing – it can only act as a guide as to which hypothesis is more likely. Modern science is very rarely in the position of having two competing hypotheses – one simpler, one more complex – which nevertheless predict identical results. In fact, using Ockham’s razor perfectly in any scientific field can be pretty difficult. “And that's not surprising the phenomena we're modeling are almost always more complex than the models, and the closer to their true complexity we can get, the more accurate the models.” Machine learning, for example, confounds the principle: “in model ensembles, deep learning, et cetera – it's usually the most complex approach that's right,” Pedro Domingo, professor emeritus of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, told Live Science. Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA, famously cautioned against its use in biology, for example, calling it “very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research.” Is Ockham’s razor always true?Įven when used correctly, the principle that simple equals better doesn’t necessarily hold true in the modern world. In that case, it’s necessary to involve extra detail and terms – even though it makes the program look more complex. But is it better? Well, not if your goal is to draw a graph of the function y = 4 + 2sin(2x).
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