Talk:Occam's razor/Archive 1

message: Should this be at upper case (Occam's Razor) or lower case (Occam's razor) ? Martin
: On Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization) lower case has been suggested. I'll make the change if nobody objects... Martin
:: Objection. Common form is capitalized. Most pages that link to it use the capitalized form as well. Redirect is already in place. --Eloquence 18:14 May 4, 2003 (UTC)
Cutting in: I think it should be Ockham's -- no reason why Occam's cant redirect to the proper name and to correct a seven hundred or some-ought years of misuse and misspelling--be it Latin mispelling or not. -戴眩sv</Strong>
Both are correct. Occam's/Ockham's razor predates the earliest dictionaries, by several hundred years... there simply wasn't any standard for Ockham's name, English was largely phonetic. Wolfkeeper 19:10, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming again? 

message: Why is the "R" capitalized?  We don't do that with things like Maxwell's theorem or Zorn's lemma or Gauss' law or the Gibbs phenomenon.  I just changed a bunch of incorrectly capitalized letters to lower-case, and I wonder if the same should be done with "Razor" on the grounds that the page was written largely by people not familiar with that aspect of Wikipedia's style manual. Michael Hardy 00:00, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Lower- and upper-case

message: When I first heard of it, it sounded as though someone had designed a razor (literally) on the principle of simplicity.
I've checked OneLook, and none of them seem to give an etymology for the "razor" bit.  One explanation I've heard is that it's a metaphor referring to a 'sharp' divide between the simple and the complex.  Though I'm not sure that makes sense.  Or maybe it's a razor that shaves away the unnecessary complexities.
Does anyone have an idea? -- Smjg 16:39, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have the direct answer on who and when coined the term "razor". I seem to recall reading it was not Occam, that it was a later terminology applied to the idea. Looking at the Oxford English Dictionary it shows the first recorded entry for "Occam's razor" as 1856, however I am fairly confident it was used before then. Why is it called "razor"? This should probably be in the first paragraph of the article, but it is really very simple. Razors cut things. From another quote in the OED: "There is a direct appeal to Occam's Razor: we should not acknowledge two or more irreducibly different types of entity if we can get by with fewer." .. ie. if there are two explanations for the same thing, we should cut one out and leave the most simple. Stbalbach 04:06, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: From the misty fogs of first year metaphysics, I seem to recall that a standard example of a non-existent object is Plato's beard (Plato was clean-shaven, but Plato's beard must exist in some sense in order for Plato to not have it). The lecturer for that course implied that it was Occam's razor because it gets rid of Plato's beard. I have no idea if this is why it's a razor, and to be honest it sounds suspicious, but I like it anyway. :) 212.9.22.230 15:27, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why "razor"? 

message: "Occam's Razor could also be said to apply to the elimination of the soul as a superfluous entity."
This being a standalone statement with no citations of reference for who said it, and not backed by further philosophical discourse or explanation as are the other assertions in the article, this seems to me fairly POV. Or at the least unsupported. But I'm new here. Any thoughts? - alavery7 17:00, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV?

message: Work is currently in progress on a page entitled Views of Creationists and mainstream scientists compared.  Also currently being worked upon is Wikipedia: NPOV (Comparison of views in science) giving guidelines for this type of page.  It is meant to be a set of guidelines for NPOV in this setting.  People knowledgable in many areas of science and the philosophy of science are greatly needed here.  And all are needed to ensure the guidelines correctly represent NPOV in this setting.  :) Barnaby dawson 21:29, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Invitation

message: Occam's Razor does not of course PROVE that simplest is best, merely that simplest should be your first choice.
If simplest has a flaw, move on to the next simplest choice, and so on.
"When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras", works in most places, but in Africa where "think zebras, not horses" may be a better choice. Reason: zebras are native to Africa and horses are rare in Africa.
One might say "... Think horses, not zebras, except in Africa", and leave it to the reader to look up why there is an exception.
Tabletop 03:17, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Occam's Razor doesn't prove that the simplest should be your first choice; it states it as a methodological principle. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 10:41, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Think horses, except in Africa when think zebras. 

message: Is there any point to this?  Probably every conceivable topic or person has been mentioned in fiction somewhere.  Surely, such mentions should be included only if they're significant for the the article (which none of these seems to be). Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 09:34, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we have a few lines on how fiction writers use the razor as a literary device that helps them to explain things? e.g. God's Debris. Just as Parallel universes are used as a literary device, there may be several examples in fiction, esp., science fiction which use the razor to explainaway things. --Gurubrahma 05:39, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  In fiction? 

message: I've heard the term "Occam's Toothbrush" used in computer science when referring to optimisation of intra-processor instructions. Is this term really in use, or is it merely something my teacher made up?  — JIP | Talk 07:52, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't you ask your teacher? -- Smjg 08:54, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Occam's Toothbrush? 

message: I've just removed ReSearcher's new material, largely because it was original research.  As original research, incidentally, it needs more thought, but it still wouldn't belong here, I'm afraid (see Wikipedia:No original research). Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 08:38, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  revert of new material 

message: The ontological version of Occam's Razor is not used in modern physics, simply because modern physical theories are not ontological but mathematical. A theory is prefered, not because it makes less ontological statements, but because it is computationally easier. I think this is also the case for other sciences. 
The importance of the ontological version for science is overrated. Markus Schmaus 6 July 2005 14:11 (UTC)
:I know a lot of physicists who'd disagree with you on this.  You're assuming a certain philosophy of physics that's by no means universally accepted. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 6 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)
::What are the ontological claims of quantum mechanics? Has it more or less claims than general realtivity? Has general realtivity more or less claims than classical mechanics? Has Lagrangean mechanics more than Hamiltonian mechanics? Markus Schmaus 6 July 2005 17:03 (UTC)
:It's always possible to find examples of pairs of theories with no ontological differences, from any period of science; the mistake is to generalise from them.  There are definite ontological differences between alternative interpretations of quantum theory (do you want Everett's many worlds?), etc. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 6 July 2005 18:14 (UTC)
I didn't pick those theories, because I think they don't have ontological differences, but because I don't  know what the ontological claims of those theories are. 
I don't know about Everett's many worlds, but when an apparatus measures a quantum system, the apparatus gets entangled with the  system. Suppose an electron is in the state |-1/2> + |+1/2> and then the combined system of the apparatus and the electron developes from 
:|0> ⊗ (|-1/2> + |+1/2>) 
to 
:(|-1/2> ⊗ |-1/2>) + (|+1/2> ⊗ |+1/2>).
Experiments, known as erasing measurements, show that those two basic states ((|-1/2> ⊗ |-1/2>) and (|+1/2> ⊗ |+1/2>)) can still interact, but outside very controlled experiments this is very unlikely. 
The same thing happens if the apparatus is a human being. When a human being measures the spin of an electron the state of the world becomes a superposition of "I think spin up and the electron is spin up" and "I think spin down and the electron is spin down". In principle those two states can still interact but it is very unlikely, some physicists refer to those basic states as worlds and talk about many worlds meaning the supperposition of many basic states, which are very unlikely to interact with each other. 
The Copenhagen interpretation avoids this using the collapse of the wavefunction. But its hard to interpret the erasing measurement experiments using the Copenhagen interpretation. 
In most cases we do not care about the rest of the state and use the collapse of the wavefunction, because it is easier, but in some experiments, we use a "many worlds" interpretation, because it is easier. 
P.S.: I just checked on wikipedia. Everet's many worlds seem to be the same. Markus Schmaus 6 July 2005 23:03 (UTC)
:I'm not sure what you mean.  If you accept the many-worlds interpretation, you commit yourself to the existence of world-branches; if you reject that interpretation, you reject the existence of those branches.  That's an ontological difference, to which Ockham's Razor is relevant.  You also mentioned other science originally; among other things, for example, biologists (in particular, but all scientists to a certain extent) are concerned with the acceptability of reductionism, as well as with the existence of species — both are ontological questions, both are subject to Ockham's Razor. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 18:15, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ontology/Physics 

message: Just a small question: what was the original phrasing of the razor? It seems there are a great deal of references on what other people think he meant, but few as to what he actually said. Got to admit though, i couldnt be bothered to read through the entire talk page! TIA. --The Minister of War 13:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ockhams own writings 

message: I guess this part was written by a SciFi geek, and normally I'd be all for it, but considering the context wouldn't it be more fitting to use something a little more plausible? --Ehudshapira 05:14, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  200-metre tall space aliens 

message: Um.. how could a space alien desire to non-intentionally knock down a tree? --Ott0 00:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably by not looking at where it treads. --Hieronymus 13:18, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Or by desiring to not look. :) --Joe Sewell 17:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  desire to (non-)intentionally? 

message: The phrase "at the same time, without Occam's Razor science does not exist" is clearly POV. Earlier in the article it is noted that the concept of the razor as a heuristic one, and as such it should be stated by use of NPOV.  Occam's Razor is not the sole governing philosophy of science, but rather one of many.  I have refrained from changing this for now in deference to those who have worked on this article for longer.  The scientific method is not a at its simplest a method for making decisions it is a method for testing hypothesis, nothing more.  Personally, and perhaps even in collectivity I would agree that Science is not possible without falsifiability and the scientific method, but I would not go so far as to say science is impossible without the razor especially considering that the razor relies on personal definitions and perceptions of complexity as well as an unstated statistical liklihood. -talonxpool
: And the magic impersonal, stated criterion to select between underdetermined theories that would function as an alternative to the razor is?... I doubt that there exists even a viable personal, unstated alternative, for that matter, or at least one that would practically get you very far. Science is not merely a tool for testing hypotheses- it is a tool for shaping one's perception of the world, and for shaping a useful perception of the world you have no choice but to constantly go out on a limb and say, "okay, for the time being I'll risk /this/ set of assumptions being wrong, because methinks it has a good chance of proving to be right". Deciding on what hypotheses to test and how to go about gathering the data, sure, you can have a gazillion doctrines on that, ranging through positivism and Kuhn's paradigm shifts and what-have-you. But what to do with the data you already have, what to make of it here and now until new data comes along, I've yet to encounter anything other than Occam's razor that shows how to do that in a way that makes any sense. It being a heuristic is indeed a regrettable shortcoming, seeing as if we had an approach that could deal with all incoming data and was not a heuristic, we would have already been well on our way to omniscience. Take the example with the benevolent indetectible entities responsible for Newton's third law of motion - out of the "many governing philosophies of science" besides the razor you mentioned, which would you nominate for the role of a good representative and what exactly does it have to say about what we should expect in 2055, with the beings' regrettable demise? --AceMyth 03:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV in Science

message: Apparently, Napoleon said something like "Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence," which is a nice way of phrasing it, especially since the Razor is an excellent weapon against conspiracy theories.  I couldn't track down the quote, though.  I thought one of you might know it or be able to find it.  Dave (talk) 07:15, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's actually a variant of Hanlon's Razor. We've already got some stuff about it there, it says the derivation's unknown but presents some theories. Bryan 07:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Napoleon