anyone use occam's razor

according to potential generalalized conspiracy'soccam's razor i think people may come to the correct conclusion the majority of the time...

so what could be so wrong about that

well.....with the biggest weakness being that ......the mindset allows conflict of interest's that work to the detriment of others (conspiracy's) to go perpetually un-noticed because they are assumed to be a fiction (stay with me) just like carefully and meticulously concealed financial crime ...since these are never the most obvious ...thus "likely" incidences...these perspectives are ignored by occam's razor...when looked under the microscope and this get's played over and over on a case by case basis.

and poof occam's razor shows this is not likely so it didn't happen and then over and over on every case.

anybody catch my drift.

I think there are reasons people WANT to believe occam's razor...

it is something that seems to be the most convenient and most reliably accurate way to look at many things...YET It is the best of the worst....in a world where people don't generally like "unknowns" so we happilly gloss over occam's razor's weakness.

i'm just asking people to give themselves the option of seeing this problem next time you try and use this "most likely" assumption and then ask yourself how "occam's razor" would ever uncover a intelligently calculated fraud or crime that hurts others (conspiracy)





[edit on 28-3-2010 by cpdaman]

I think I'll have to disagree with you on this one. And I'd also like to point out that the art of deductive reasoning comes into play when applying Occam's razor.

Using deduction to eliminate the variables then applying the simplest answer after all variables are considered will, in most cases, give you the correct reason. Unless of course its a cover-up

Of course you know that you use Occam's razor everyday. If I leave a pie on my wind still to cool, then come back thirty minutes later and its gone. I'll use Occam's razor and figure that someone had probably stolen it. If I didn't use Occam's razor then I could say that leprechauns riding potatoes came and stole it for they're annual musical festival.

I think Occam's Razor is a useful tool, but I see its misuse in a couple of ways:
Firstly, some people misinterpret it ( either accidentally or intentionally ) to mean that the answer that it points to is the correct answer - when, of course it only points to the most likely theoretically .

Secondly, I see a lot of pseudoskeptics using it to score points on a subject, and to justify the mainstream line or theory in a ''Nothing more to see here'' kind of way. Occam's Razor is not a debate winner !

Of course, it's not totally incompatible on a conspiracy forum, but a lot of time its use is somewhat moot; by very definition, most conspiracies will not be the result of the simplest explanation ! I think it's a much more useful tool for natural explanations, rather than affairs and events where people are involved - most people's interactions with others are usually not best explained by the simplest reason. For example; if a boy fancies a girl, then he might ignore her or not pay attention to her because he doesn't want her or anyone else to know that he likes her - so Occam's Razor would suggest that the fact that he's ignoring her shows he isn't interested in her, even so the opposite is true !

The most important thing to remember, though, is that just because Occam's razor points to something, then do not just accept that, but persevere with your own pursuit of the truth !

Originally posted by Benji1999
Secondly, I see a lot of pseudoskeptics using it to score points on a subject, and to justify the mainstream line or theory in a ''Nothing more to see here'' kind of way. Occam's Razor is not a debate winner !

I think Occam's razor is a useful tool but it does get lazily abused by pseudosceptics - here's an interesting statement dealing with the UFO subject by Brian Zeller:

"UFO debunkers do not understand Occam's Razor, and they abuse it regularly. They think they understand it, but they don't.
What it means is that when several hypotheses of varying complexity can explain a set of observations with equal ability, the first one to be tested should be the one that invokes the fewest number of uncorroborated assumptions. If this simplest hypothesis is proven incorrect, the next simplest is chosen, and so forth.

But the skeptics forget two parts: the part regarding the test of the simpler hypotheses, and the part regarding explaining all of the observations. What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse of the proper approach".

Brian Zeiler

Thread

Cheers.

Originally posted by karl 12

Originally posted by Benji1999
Secondly, I see a lot of pseudoskeptics using it to score points on a subject, and to justify the mainstream line or theory in a ''Nothing more to see here'' kind of way. Occam's Razor is not a debate winner !

I think Occam's razor is a useful tool but it does get lazily abused by pseudosceptics - here's an interesting statement dealing with the UFO subject by Brian Zeller:

"UFO debunkers do not understand Occam's Razor, and they abuse it regularly. They think they understand it, but they don't.
What it means is that when several hypotheses of varying complexity can explain a set of observations with equal ability, the first one to be tested should be the one that invokes the fewest number of uncorroborated assumptions. If this simplest hypothesis is proven incorrect, the next simplest is chosen, and so forth.

But the skeptics forget two parts: the part regarding the test of the simpler hypotheses, and the part regarding explaining all of the observations. What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse of the proper approach".

Brian Zeiler

Thread

Cheers.

yes very well said.....people WANT to believe the most simple thing.....

especially when the alternative is time away from something else to critically think about something they may never be sure about.

I guess i'm saying it is notoriously used "lazily" (not thoroughly) by people that WANT to believe the simplist answer.....regarding potential conspiracys

[edit on 28-3-2010 by cpdaman]

Originally posted by cpdaman

according to potential generalalized conspiracy'soccam's razor i think people may come to the correct conclusion the majority of the time...

so what could be so wrong about that

well.....with the biggest weakness being that ......the mindset allows conflict of interest's that work to the detriment of others (conspiracy's) to go perpetually un-noticed because they are assumed to be a fiction (stay with me) just like carefully and meticulously concealed financial crime ...since these are never the most obvious ...thus "likely" incidences...these perspectives are ignored by occam's razor...when looked under the microscope and this get's played over and over on a case by case basis.

and poof occam's razor shows this is not likely so it didn't happen and then over and over on every case.

anybody catch my drift.

I think there are reasons people WANT to believe occam's razor...

it is something that seems to be the most convenient and most reliably accurate way to look at many things...YET It is the best of the worst....in a world where people don't generally like "unknowns" so we happilly gloss over occam's razor's weakness.

i'm just asking people to give themselves the option of seeing this problem next time you try and use this "most likely" assumption and then ask yourself how "occam's razor" would ever uncover a intelligently calculated fraud or crime that hurts others (conspiracy)





[edit on 28-3-2010 by cpdaman]

so what % of the board do you think use occam's razor when dealing with conspiracy's......and what % do it thoroughly?

Occam's Razor is simply a tool we can use to apply reason to a specific situation. It's just a tool. It doesn't mean that Occam's Razor that the conclusion you come to is 100% correct 100% of the time, but a lot of the time it will be.

Originally posted by unmode
Occam's Razor is simply a tool we can use to apply reason to a specific situation. It's just a tool. It doesn't mean that Occam's Razor that the conclusion you come to is 100% correct 100% of the time, but a lot of the time it will be.

right but except when there is a intelligently planned fraud/cover up etc...

you know things we may just be trying to uncover

Occam's razor is good, but I always seem to get a much closer shave if I use the Mach 3 and a good quality shaving cream.

Wait, isn't that what we're talking about??

Originally posted by karl 12

Originally posted by Benji1999
Secondly, I see a lot of pseudoskeptics using it to score points on a subject, and to justify the mainstream line or theory in a ''Nothing more to see here'' kind of way. Occam's Razor is not a debate winner !

I think Occam's razor is a useful tool but it does get lazily abused by pseudosceptics - here's an interesting statement dealing with the UFO subject by Brian Zeller:

"UFO debunkers do not understand Occam's Razor, and they abuse it regularly. They think they understand it, but they don't.
What it means is that when several hypotheses of varying complexity can explain a set of observations with equal ability, the first one to be tested should be the one that invokes the fewest number of uncorroborated assumptions. If this simplest hypothesis is proven incorrect, the next simplest is chosen, and so forth.

But the skeptics forget two parts: the part regarding the test of the simpler hypotheses, and the part regarding explaining all of the observations. What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse of the proper approach".

Brian Zeiler

Thread

Cheers.

Jesus Christ, finally.

Occam's Razor IS a useful term that is useful 100% of the time WHEN it is used correctly, as stated above.

It was not created to prove/disprove hypothesis, but rather in which order an individual should go through multiple hypotheses.

It's useful 100% of the time because you go through multiple hypotheses quicker than any other way; checking the easiest hypothesis to explore and possibly get rid of. While one can choose to check the more complex hypotheses first, and it may be the correct hypothesis, statistically speaking it is the quickest method of elimination of multiple hypotheses.

It basically acts as the opposite of working off of intuition or hunches, if you will. Instead of working off unfounded assumptions, you work off of logic. And again, it isn't about right or wrong; instead of saying "I think this hypothesis is the best to start off with because I think it may be the right one", one is saying "I think I'll start with this hypothesis because it's the easiest to fully explore and either debunk it and move on, it may it very well be the answer."