What is Ockham's Razor? - Gentleman Thinker

The simplest explanation is usually the correct one? Or is it more complex than that?

As a piece of trivia, this series was originally going to be "Geordie Thinker" and feature explanations in a Geordie (someone from Newcastle - my home city) accent, but the Geordie accent is famously incomprehensible and this had a better aesthetic.

[asimghaffar]

So basically Occam's Razor is a tool of philosophy that states that the most straight-forward or simplest explanation for something is likely to be true?

[MorbidMystique]

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

[autumnmnmn]

I fully support your leveraging of British stereotypes to maximise your viewing figures

[madhatterhimself]

Aristotle stated that it was pointless to answer big questions with answers that results in even bigger questions.
This philosophical concept seems to build on top of said statement.

[Fiddling_while_Rome_burns]

So we could say demons pull things towards the earth and we don't need to complicate this explanation with theories like the gravity.

[timetraveler_]

"All things considered equal, the simplest solution is usually correct" can also be interpreted as "don't overcomplicate stuff, if you already got the solution".

[puddingball]

Well, Newton's theory of gravity doesn't explain why things attract to each other, it only describes how they attract, and calls it gravity. So I guess the gravity demons must exist then.

[THETHPHANTOM]

well dayum...WTF are those other videos that are +8min talking about then.

[GelidGanef]

To everyone in the comments, Occam's Razor is not perfect and not always right, but it is only supposed to be used to differentiate equivalent theories. If you have two totally different theories, which give different predictions, and one seems simpler, you don't use Occam's Razor, you do experiments. If you have a modern theory of gravity AND a mathematically identical theory of gravity that relies on demons, then you use Occam's Razor. If you have modern gravity vs. Aristotle gravity or vs. mathematically-distinct demon gravity or vs. some stoned dude in your dorm saying "I don't know, man, stuff just like falls, you know?", it's time to test those theories on the real world. Occam's Razor says to keep it simple stupid, but only as long as what you're saying is still as close to right as you can get.

[unizero]

Ockham's razor doesn't say e.g. that a simpler theory has to be more preferable from a more complicated one. It says that a more complicated theory has to be less preferable iff it is not necessary to be otherwise. That means that a more complicated theory can be more preferable than a simpler one, but iff this is necessary.

[juliea]

I think it's the most reasonable explanation is usually the correct one, but not a guarantee of being the correct one. And the most reasonable explanation is usually the most graceful.

[princessof]

If u hear hoof beats, think horse, not unicorn.

[DKlarations]

Bite-sized, I dig it.Looking forward to more.

[naterobinson]

Like minute physics but philosophy, awesome!

[cys]

Please do it with a Geordie accent! Anyway, you can add subtitles if people can't understand.

[FrescaBlunts]

I purposely chose this, I am very happy it is what I expected. Subbed.

[cheesecakelasagna]

I've been perusing your channel for a while now and just went back to this first video I've watched from you just to say this: great vids, man, great vids.

[jovanyagathe]

Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation is almost always somebody screwed up

[Pfhorrest]

The function of coming up with explanatory models is to have a simpler abstraction to work with than just all of the raw observational data, so using the simplest model that actually matches that actual data is just the straightforward thing to do given the very purpose of modeling things to begin with. This also nicely gives a rationalistic account of Kuhn's model of scientific revolutions: when an old model plus all of the exceptions you have to keep making to it to account for all of the anomalous observations it can't explain becomes a bigger, more complicated mess than another model that's less parsimonious than the old one (but not less parsimonious than the old one plus all its exceptions), then it's time to switch to the more complicated model. So Newtonian gravity works fine for the most part, except for all of those cases where it doesn't, and while general relativity adds in a lot of complication on top of Newton, it's still a lot simpler than Newton plus all of the damn exceptions you would constantly have to make to him to make something like GPS work or to predict the orbit or Mercury.

[Angel-npeo]

So basically dont over complicate your reasoning?