William of Ockham

[iago]

Today (May 26), 1328, William of Ockham fled Avignon after declaring Pope John XXII was a heretic. 

William of Ockham is the inventor of one of the most famous and fundamental idioms in history, Ockham's Razor, which states that the simplest solution is usually the best.  That idiom applies everywhere, from governments to laws to security to artificial intelligence. 

Here is more information on William of Ockham:

William of Ockham (also Occam or any of several other spellings) (c. 1288 – 1348) was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, from Ockham, a small village in Surrey, near East Horsley. As a Franciscan, William was devoted to a life of extreme poverty.

Ockham has been called "the greatest nominalists that ever lived", and along with Duns Scotus, his opposite number from the realist camp, one of the two "greatest speculative minds of the middle ages", as well as "two of the profoundest metaphysicians that ever lived" (Peirce, 1869). One important contribution that he made to modern science and modern intellectual culture was through the principle of parsimony in explanation and theory building that came to be known as Ockham's razor. This maxim, as interpreted by Bertrand Russell (1946, 462—463), states that if one can explain a phenomenon without assuming this or that hypothetical entity, there is no ground for assuming it. That is, one should always opt for an explanation in terms of the fewest possible number of causes, factors, or variables.

A pioneer of nominalism, some consider him the father of modern epistemology and modern philosophy in general, because of his strongly argued position that only individuals exist, rather than supra-individual universals, essences, or forms, and that universals are the products of abstraction from individuals by the human mind and have no extra-mental existence. Ockham is sometimes considered an advocate of conceptualism rather than nominalism, for whereas nominalists held that universals were merely names, i.e. words rather than existing realities, conceptualists held that they were mental concepts, i.e. the names were names of concepts, which do exist, although only in the mind.

Ockham is also increasingly being recognized as an important contributor to the development of Western constitutional ideas, especially those of limited responsible government. The views on monarchial accountability espoused in his Dialogus* (written between 1332 and 1348) greatly influenced the Conciliar movement and assisted in the emergence of liberal democratic ideologies.

In logic, Ockham worked towards what would later be called De Morgan's Laws and considered ternary logic, that is, a logical system with three truth values, a concept that would be taken up again in the mathematical logic of the 19th and 20th centuries.

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[Newby]

Joe, take notes.

[MyndFyre]

Joe, take notes.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

I like Ockham's Razor, although it's somewhat dependent upon framing.

Perhaps dependent isn't an appropriate word; subject, is better.

[iago]

I don't know what "framing" is. 

I like Ockham's Razor as a theory.  However, I'm aware that it doesn't work in most cases.  But if it did, think of how great it would be! 

[Rule]

I quite despise Occam's razor.  First of all, what is "simple" is very subjective, and so is what is "best."  So why is this regarded as such a profound statement?  Further, a lot of scientists (esp. biologists) get overly keen on Occam's "simple is best" axiom, and end up horribly oversimplifying complicated processes.  (..Those biologists  >:()

I think it's one of those lightweight statements that sounds quite rhetorically pleasing, so somehow it has managed to ground its way into being thought of as profound logic.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler."

[iago]

Well, what I said is a simplified version.  The proper version is akin to Einstein's, I think:

"entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity."

And, to explain it a little:

"Furthermore, when multiple competing theories have equal predictive powers, the principle recommends selecting those that introduce the fewest assumptions and postulate the fewest hypothetical entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood."

Of course, like I said, it's not perfect.  But when you have a system with an unknown number of variables, the solution which includes the least number of unknowns while still covering all cases is probably the best one. 

[Rule]

"Furthermore, when multiple competing theories have equal predictive powers, the principle recommends selecting those that introduce the fewest assumptions and postulate the fewest hypothetical entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood."

Hehe, it depends on what the assumptions are.  For example, we could have a theory with 1 (massive) assumption, and another with 20 tiny axioms, and the latter theory could still be superior.  Although I agree, in the form you quoted, the statement is a lot more appealing.  I guess it's just one of those situations where I think, "hey, I could have pulled that out of nowhere, so why does he get to be so famous!" :P.  I'm also kind of bitter because I often get shut down (irl) by some silly biologist who blurts out "Occam's razor" because he/SHE can't comprehend what I'm talking about. 

[iago]

Although it isn't explicitly spelled out, I suspect that Ockham would say that making several small assumptions is better than making one massive assumption. 

[Super_X]

Although it isn't explicitly spelled out, I suspect that Ockham would say that making several small assumptions is better than making one massive assumption. 

Isn't that one massive assumption..? ;) <3