Occam's razor & Coincidence theorists

I posted this earlier:

Originally posted by bsbray11
Another thing to keep in mind is that the razor doesn't take into account impossibilities.

Occam's Razor is not a law of physics.

I could say to you, which is more probable?:

A) Everything is constructed of atoms.

B) Everything is constructed of platonic solids.


(A) is widely accepted as a much more accurate model, and yet anyone familiar with (B) would realize that it fits Occam's Razor much better, when used in the way that you use it (ie, simpler = true).

Occam's Razor is NOT that simpler = true, because this would obviously lead to many grossly untrue statements.

Occam's razor is not equivalent to the idea that "perfection is simplicity". Albert Einstein probably had this in mind when he wrote in 1933 that "The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience" often paraphrased as "Theories should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." It often happens that the best explanation is much more complicated than the simplest possible explanation because it requires fewer assumptions. In the light of this, the popular rephrasing of the razor - that "The simplest explanation is the best one" - can lead to a gross oversimplification when the word simple is taken at face value.

My bold; Source.

All that means is that when 2 explainations exist for the same event and both fit, then the simpler one is more likely to be true. In the examples I provided, both explain the events, but the ones I called reality don't presume the existance of things not shown to exist, and the CT version presumes a far reaching conspiracy, involving many people. The CT version, since in involves so many more extraneous events and people than the Reality version, such as people working for NIST and FEMA being bought off/in on it/threatened. This shows that Occam's razor supports the Reality version.

The atoms theory is the one supported by Occam's razor, because it fits the evidence, the platonic solid doesn't, so it's not considered.

[edit on 15-8-2006 by Mr_pointy]

Originally posted by Mr_pointy
The atoms theory is the one supported by Occam's razor, because it fits the evidence, the platonic solid doesn't, so it's not considered.

Then your objective should be to prove that the WTC Towers and WTC7 collapsed by fire and impact/debris damage alone.

Otherwise, you cannot use Occam's Razor honestly in this situation.

Considering ther's no evidence for anything else, and we know there was damage from debris, and massive fires as shown by the smoke and eyewitnesses, it's the only theory that fits the evidence.

I'm not quanified to prove what caused the collapse, but i know of no experts that suggest it was anything else.

[edit on 16-8-2006 by Mr_pointy]

[edit on 16-8-2006 by Mr_pointy]

I don't see how I have to prove it was fire and debris to be using Occam's razor honestly, because explosives are extraneous, they add more complexity without explaining anything.

im not sure where to post this but, doesnt it seem a little odd how perfectly the towers fell (especially the one with the large antenna on top of it)?

im not sure where to post this but, doesnt it seem a little odd how perfectly the towers fell (especially the one with the large antenna on top of it)?

Define perfectly.

Originally posted by Mr_pointy
I don't see how I have to prove it was fire and debris to be using Occam's razor honestly, because explosives are extraneous, they add more complexity without explaining anything.

It becomes completely relevant when I say the buildings would not have collapsed without additional energy. And I don't think they would have.

Originally posted by misguidedprophet
im not sure where to post this but, doesnt it seem a little odd how perfectly the towers fell (especially the one with the large antenna on top of it)?

If we're to think that the building (WTC1) fell from fire, then yes, it's odd as hell, because it looks as though all of the columns gave way at once, doesn't it?

yeah, isnt the wind spped at that elevation pretty strong, so wouldnt the top have broken off instead of falling perfectly like a timed demolition!?

It becomes completely relevant when I say the buildings would not have collapsed without additional energy. And I don't think they would have.

So you're saying it's relevent, just because you say so?

If we're to think that the building (WTC1) fell from fire, then yes, it's odd as hell, because it looks as though all of the columns gave way at once, doesn't it?

Not really, there were 47 core columns all or most weakened by fire, once 1 gives, the rest have to take 1/46 the weight, the next fails it's holding 1/45, the increase in load is increasing with each failed core, all the way down to, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1/1. Since the increase in load for each failure increases the load, the cores fail at an increasing rate, until the last cores are failing almost instantly.

yeah, isnt the wind spped at that elevation pretty strong, so wouldnt the top have broken off instead of falling perfectly like a timed demolition!?

I can tell you have no idea how heavy the towers are, there's no way wind could have blown the top off.

PS, it's about 65,000,000kg for the 14 floors above the plane hit in WTC1, and 135,000,000kg for the 29 above the plane in WTC2.

Originally posted by Mr_pointy
So you're saying it's relevent, just because you say so?

Who are you discussing this with? Why are you posting here?

If you want to agree with yourself, no one is stopping you.

If you want to conduct an intelligent discussion with me on the applications of Occam's Razor to 9/11, you're going to have to address scientific issues, specifically the possibilities of those Towers falling without explosives, first.

Not really, there were 47 core columns all or most weakened by fire,

Sources? Supporting evidence?

once 1 gives, the rest have to take 1/46 the weight, the next fails it's holding 1/45, the increase in load is increasing with each failed core, all the way down to, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1/1.

This would never happen as buildings are over-engineered. Columns failed during the impacts. Neither building fell. Over-engineering is why.

Originally posted by diggs
At what point do coincidences cease being coincidences and become conspiracy?

At the point a persons mind decides such coincidences, in thier opinion, represent a conspiracy. That point will of course vary person to person.

Originally posted by misguidedprophet
im not sure where to post this but, doesnt it seem a little odd how perfectly the towers fell (especially the one with the large antenna on top of it)?

The start of the collapse was not even, but once the event started the pretty much straight down collapse is perfectly understandable. Anything else would have seemed odd.

If you want to conduct an intelligent discussion with me on the applications of Occam's Razor to 9/11, you're going to have to address scientific issues, specifically the possibilities of those Towers falling without explosives, first.

OK, we know there were fires and massive damage from debris, but we don't know that there are explosives. Therefore Occam's razor states that the simplest explaination, and the one more likely to be correct is that fire brought the fire down. I don't need to prove that fire and damage did it, because at that point Occam's razor is pointless. You claim it needed extra energy, but you have just your claim. With no evidence at all to back it up, Occam's razor says it just adds complexity without offering a better explaination, therefore it's not needed.

It's not relevant until it's proved to be true, ovewise it's just you saying it's releveant because you say it is.

Once you prove one of the differing theories, Occam's razor no longer applies.

Sources? Supporting evidence?

You've never heard of the NIST report? Regardless, we know there were fires inside, they would have heated and weakened the cores.

This would never happen as buildings are over-engineered. Columns failed during the impacts. Neither building fell. Over-engineering is why.

If the building is badly damaged enough it will, the WTC1&2 did survive the impacts, but the fires weakened the cores. The added weakening from the fires was enough to start the chain of collapses, they may have fallen anyway, given enough time.

Remember they may be overengineered, but that's only for normal events and safety margins, noone had ever designed a building to withstand a hit from an airliner. The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable, look what happened to it.

[edit on 16-8-2006 by Mr_pointy]

[edit on 16-8-2006 by Mr_pointy]

At the point a persons mind decides such coincidences, in thier opinion, represent a conspiracy. That point will of course vary person to person.

Coincidences can never prove a conspiracy, because no matter the odds, they could be what they're called, coincidences. You have to prove there is a conspiracy before you can should they could be linked together, even then they could still be coincidences.

Example for Occam's razor: You have a dog and a doggy door in your house. The door locks and unlocks from the inside, and you always lock it before going to work. One day you come home and the dog has escaped outside through the unlocked doggy door. You have 2 theories about this:
1. You forgot to lock the door
2. A burglar broke in, unlocked the door and let the dog escape, leaving all your possesions alone

Occam's razor clearly favors the first explaination, the second one adds uneeded elementals, the burglar. While the first one is a much simpler answer.

Originally posted by Mr_pointy
OK, we know there were fires and massive damage from debris, but we don't know that there are explosives. Therefore Occam's razor states that the simplest explaination, and the one more likely to be correct is that fire brought the fire down.

Again, you have to establish that impact damage and fire could have done that in the first place. You have proven absolutely nothing.

Do we really have to go in circles like this? Occam's Razor does not support impossibilities.

You've never heard of the NIST report? Regardless, we know there were fires inside, they would have heated and weakened the cores.

No, I've never heard of the NIST Report.

The NIST Report does not state that "all or most" of the core columns were weakened by fire. There is no credible source for this statement, that you just made in a previous post.

If the building is badly damaged enough it will,

Obviously. All you have to do is establish that there was enough damage, and then establish that a localized collapse could produce a global collapse.

Remember they may be overengineered, but that's only for normal events and safety margins, noone had ever designed a building to withstand a hit from an airliner.

Besides the fact that the WTC Towers were both fully capable of withstanding the impacts, with a small minority of columns being severed in the impacting regions in the process (check FEMA's Report, sections 2.2.1.1 and 2.2.2.2 and NIST's core impact modeling), the WTC's construction manager, Frank Demartini, has also stated that the buildings could have stood multiple impacts from fully-loaded 707s.

The "massive" amount of impact damage you're referring to was less than 15% of the perimeter columns in the impacted regions in either building, and the core damage NIST modeled wasn't above 25% even in the worst-case scenario if my memory serves me, and they even modeled WTC2's impact as being dead-on (it was not).

Got that? >15% of the perimeter columns, >25% of the core structures, worst case scenarios.

The safety factor ratings of the perimeter and core columns were 5 and 3.35 respectively, if I remember correctly. That means the perimeter columns could support 5 times their expected loads and the core columns could support about 3.35 times their expected loads.

That means 500% and 335% of their expected loads, respectively, according to NIST figures (I think they attribute too much of the load-bearing to the perimeter columns, but it only hurts their argument here because of the extra redundancy in the perimeter columns, so I won't complain ). Take >15% of the perimeter away, and >25% of the core away, and what happens? Still standing, easily. This is what happened after the impacts.

So, the job of the fires, to get a whole floor to fail, then becomes to do about 4 times the work of the impacts if you work it out (I'm going off another set of data now, but it works out close enough for the point to remain perfectly valid). You'd have to fail around 60% more of the total structure to get a floor to fail, with fire alone. Or some equivalent, taking buckling into account.

Buckling, in fact, was what NIST blamed the failures on, if you read their report. Trusses failed, perimeter columns lost stability and failed, and then the core structure failed by some mechanism they completely fail to make clear.

Problem: Where was all the buckling, pre-collapse?

If you remember how much of the structure it would take, in addition to the impact damage, to fail a single floor, then becomes apparent that an awful lot of perimeter columns would have to buckle to cause a whole floor to fail, and a lot of the core as well. NIST actually shows us a handful of buckled perimeter columns, or at least what appear to be buckled columns (you can't actually see many/most of them for the aluminum coverings, which were contorted in all number of directions). Nowhere is there shown enough buckling to provide justification for the collapse of a whole floor, or even nearing the amount needed to reach a "critical mass" for a chain reaction to take place. We saw nothing that would indicate a global collapse was coming.


That sums up my argument for suspecting fires and impact damage alone would not have initiated a collapse.

Every time you use Occam's Razor as you have been, you're ignoring ALL of the above. I'd like to see you actually address it, before using the razor as you have been.

quote: Originally posted by diggs At what point do coincidences cease being coincidences and become conspiracy?

I think I can answer this. when various events do not add up, this is cause for conjecture. when it becomes clear that various elements point to an outside hand with a hidden agenda, then a conspiracy becomes a logical hypothesis. as more facts fit the hypothesis, doubt is removed. that's been my experience, anyway.

it is a similar question to 'at what point does an investigating detective start to realise that many of the separate crimes he is investigating have more than likely been carried out by the same person?'

mr pointy, I am new to this, but I am gonna have a go, on just one of your examples.
a plane supposedly hit the pentagon. however there is no wing damage to the building that would have been left by an aircraft strike. also, there is no sign of the wings in the wreckage. therefore, a plane did not hit the pentagon. and there it is. once you see that that is a lie, the whole thing starts to unravel...

the other conclusion I guess is that it was a magic plane, with special disappearing wings. are you buying that, the 'magic plane' hypothesis? cos that is basically what you would have to believe, if you think that a passenger plane hit the pentagon...

Originally posted by Captain Kingmonster
mr pointy, I am new to this, but I am gonna have a go, on just one of your examples.
a plane supposedly hit the pentagon. however there is no wing damage to the building that would have been left by an aircraft strike.

But I say that there is evidence of wing damage to the building. Furthermore, there is clear photographic evidence of wing damage. Therefore we have our first problem. Do you accept or reject my evidence based on the evidence alone, or do you evaluate it in regard to the damage that it would do to the premise that you have already decided is true.

Originally posted by Captain Kingmonster
also, there is no sign of the wings in the wreckage.

Again, there is plenty of evidence of airplane debris outside the building. Just because it is difficult to determine from a photograph if it was from the wing or not, does not prove that there is no wing parts in the debris field.

Using false logic to support a point only weakens your conclusion.

Originally posted by Captain Kingmonster
therefore, a plane did not hit the pentagon. and there it is. once you see that that is a lie, the whole thing starts to unravel...

Again, note the self supporting logic. You’ve already decided that your conclusion is true, so you cherry pick to find evidence to support this conclusion.