“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” –Einstein?
Occam’s razor is usually summed up in a phrase such as “Other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the right one”. Ockham’s razor is sometimes considered a type of scientific evidence. There are different interpretations of the meaning of Ockham’s razor and different evaluations of its validity.
Interpretations of the meaning of Ockham’s razor
We may ask ourselves: is Occam’s razor a consideration about the validity of theories, or a practical consideration?
1) The strong Occam’s razor: Theories have more or less validity depending on their complexity: “Other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”
2) The soft Occam’s razor: We choose the simplest simply for comfort: “Other things being equal, the practical thing is to choose the simplest explanation.”
Debate on the validity of the razor
Many arguments have been written for and against Ockham’s razor. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
A good argument to defend the strong version of the razor is that the razor is precisely what science seems to be doing: making explanations compatible with evidence as simple as possible. Another good argument to defend it is that we can create infinite (bad) explanations or hypotheses if we allow ourselves to complicate them as much as we want. But on the other hand, if we have two good explanations, what reason is there to discard the most complex one, if not for practical considerations?
Counterexamples of Ockham’s razor
- Which of these two sequences that count the number of infections of a pandemic is more credible? [1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64] or [1, 1, 4, 5, 7, 12, 45]. The first is simpler [y = x * 2] but surely false. Too perfect to be real.
- If your partner has left you, there are several explanations: an infidelity, ze has become bored with you, in reality ze was only interested in your money, now taking care of their parents is their priority…
- Things just drop down. That’s all. The idea that things attract each other is complicated. Things behave as they seem to behave. If things seem to be falling down, they are falling down. If the sun seems to go around the Earth, it does.
Ockham’s razor in the matter of sentience
Even if it were true, many (or all) of the uses of Ockham’s razor applied to sentience (for example, to reject that computers or atoms are sentient) should be discarded because hypotheses are not being rejected because they are more complex, but for being less intuitive.
By way of analogy: considering that the Earth is flat (without further explanation) is no less complex than considering that the Earth is a sphere (without further explanation). The former is simply more intuitive.
Considering that natural wet neurons are responsible for sentience (without further explanation) is no less complex than considering that information processing units —such as artificial neurons or computers— are responsible for sentience (without further explanation). The former is simply more intuitive.
An additional argument for rejecting Ockham’s razor
The additional argument I put forward is that we are programmed to perceive simple facts. The more complex a phenomenon, the more difficult we have to identify it. We find simple causes because we are designed to recognize simple objects. I have called this “The principle of stability, inertia and recurrence“.
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