Do you think we need a more modernized Occam's razor?

Do you think that perhaps it would be logical to create a more modern Occams razor that would apply to MSM and TPTB? Seems like everyone attaches the idea of Occams razor to things and events where MSM and TPTB are involved. But really it might almost seem as if there should be some other formula that should be created and applied to such events.

Does this make sense? And do you think that such a formula should be developed and applied? Or am I missing something?

Like I think Occam would be rolling in his grave right now if he knew how carelessly we apply it to situations that obviously should use some other benchmark.

reply to post by r2d246


Occams razor is only one way of analyzing data. The word "data" is key... information that is cross checked for veracity. In our modern world most tend to skip that part. They hear, read, or decide something and take it as fact. Without corroboration hearsay and misinformation get promulgated.

That doesn't even address propaganda - which itself might be so prevalent as to be false and still pass the test of cross checking data from multiple, historically reliable sources.

Ultimately one has to rely upon discernment. For that? Occams razor is still the sharpest tool in the tool box.

~Heff

Occams Razor is way overused here on ATS for two reasons:

1) people think it sounds cool and they all want to be as cool as possible. A lot like "Pareidolia". And

2) it allows debunkers some kind of pseudoscientific reference to apply to anything and everything. ie "there is no such thing as conspiracy because Occams Razor states that the simplest explanation is correct regardless of how it fits evidence."

Personally I don't think the theory has much valid application in its current form.

No, Occam's Razor is perfectly fine. The problem is that virtually no person who uses the phrase actually uses it _correctly_. Occam's Razor is applicable in _one_ circumstance only: when choosing which possible explanation to _test_ next. That's ALL. It doesn't say that "the simplest explanation is probably correct" -- that is a logical fallacy and anyone who thinks it deserves to get smacked, REALLY HARD, upside the head. It says to _test_ the simplest explanations first.

TEST.

It's about designing your experiments. If you are NOT going to be explicitly testing your hypotheses, then using Occam's Razor just means that you are an idiot, making a probabilistic formulation of a modus tolens sylogism. And that means you're a moron.

No, we don't need a new Razor -- we need people to learn how to use the old one.

Agreed with first two posters. If people understood the way the mind is programmed much like a computer, there would be a pretty hard shift in wisdom, understanding and discernment. The belief-based system we've been taught to use as an operation system is starting to show its age and wear. New understanding is starting to trump old and those using a DOS 4.0 based system is having to deal in a world where some are discovering new ways to program and consciously operate the bio-computer we identify as our "self". The thing is, you can't layer the latest Linux build on a DOS 4.0 box. In addition to a possible hardware upgrade (read: understanding the programming process & utilizing it), there is a software crash that can occur if the old OS isn't wiped first.

Belief plays such a huge role in all of this that Occam's double-bladed triple-action Gillette does a pretty decent job of cutting to the core and coming up with a rational yet discerning understanding. The user of the tool must have a completely open mind and harbor no labels or judgments. These cloud the ability to gain that discernment.

Here's an interesting example. The debate rages on whether HAARP is a weather machine, mind control, or even real. Like most "debates" in these forums, the tendency is towards an emotionally charged word fest that evokes so much programmed energy that it makes a rat nest pile for the razor to cut through. Skip the programmed word-links and cut to the data.

There's a guy, dutchsince, who some label a crackpot fear monger. He posts some pretty interesting radar photos of the days leading up to Frankenstorm Sandy. They are beautiful perfectly formed radar spirals that radiate counter-clockwise and outward. During the same time the media is promoting their new blockbuster, "FRANKENSTORM - The Reality Show".

Now HAARP or not, it just seems interesting that there's a hurricane shaped electro-magnetic multi-day frequency blast at the same time a storm emerges that gets instantly linked to a monster created by a doctor.

Coincidence? Fine. Crackpot? Fine. History shows the heretics & blasphemers are often correct in understanding & discernment, yet they pay the price of being the pioneer walking into a dogma-based science/religion/politically driven witch hunt.

The new Occam's Razor should include a basic given or foundation that includes the understanding that the majority of humans on this planet live emotionally attached to their experience, much like being attached to your favorite identity-giving car/home/career/drama. The ego-based teaching style ensures conformity through lessons and often medication. Outliers are often persecuted. Group-think, especially polarized, is the norm.

Given these and many other observations & patterns that sadly can be counted as constants, one has to ask, "what is my own flat-earth thinking?" Or, what do I believe that even if given proof beyond doubt, would I still believe. It's a mind cracker zen koan of a question. It forces one to obliterate labels and judgments and leaves room for a conscious-driven control of the chatter mind and allows the thought process to be used for creation purposes.

A little off track but these things have all come to my understanding via Occam's razor. Eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. See what's left.

Your own personal experience through a clear lens of less-ego, more quiet-mind, using everything as a mirror to your own state of machine operation (using emotions as indicators, like the oil light in a car) trumps that of anyone else. Knowing belief to be both the creative's energy and also the chain that binds men into utter slavery, one can use Occams razor as part of a bigger toolbox.

Originally posted by Urantia1111
Occams Razor is way overused here on ATS for two reasons:

1) people think it sounds cool and they all want to be as cool as possible. A lot like "Pareidolia". And

2) it allows debunkers some kind of pseudoscientific reference to apply to anything and everything. ie "there is no such thing as conspiracy because Occams Razor states that the simplest explanation is correct regardless of how it fits evidence."

Personally I don't think the theory has much valid application in its current form.

Ya you're dead on! I couldn't agree more!

reply to post by elmoastro


Well that's the thing, we don't need a bic 1 blade anymore. We need a Gelette Fusion. Occam would be rolling in his grave right now if he knew that we were still trying to shave with his very old dull razor.

reply to post by Stunspot


That's really not true. It's a logical exercise, and doesn't have any direct association with testing.

"Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor, Latin lex parsimoniae) is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in logic and problem-solving. It states that among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected."
- Wikipedia

"a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities "
- Merriam-Webster

" noun

the principle (attributed to William of Occam) that in explaining a thing no more assumptions should be made than are necessary. The principle is often invoked to defend reductionism or nominalism. "
- Oxford Dictionaries

reply to post by Stunspot


I always thought Occam's Razor meant ruling out unnecessary cause considerations. For example, and to simplify, if we heat a test tube using a Bunsen burner, it is unnecessary for us to consider any other reason why the test tube gets hot... We don't have to consider that it got hot for some supernatural reason.

Firstly OP there is not guy called Occam who is rolling in his grave, the name Occam actually comes from a place called Ockham were a guy called William of Ockham famously used the argument, its I named after the place, Ockham in England.

One of the problems with it on ATS is that people incorrectly say that it means the simplest answer is usually the correct one with presented with multiple possibilities. That is incorrect, it actually means that when faced with multiple possible answers the one with the lest assumptions is usually correct.

We don’t need to “modernize it”, we just need to learn how to use it, a lot of conspiracy theorists don’t like it because it tends to be used as a argument against their claims, often successfully. But it does work both ways a conspiracy theorist can use Occams razor to also make a point.

Originally posted by OtherSideOfTheCoin
Firstly OP there is not guy called Occam who is rolling in his grave, the name Occam actually comes from a place called Ockham were a guy called William of Ockham famously used the argument, its I named after the place, Ockham in England.

One of the problems with it on ATS is that people incorrectly say that it means the simplest answer is usually the correct one with presented with multiple possibilities. That is incorrect, it actually means that when faced with multiple possible answers the one with the lest assumptions is usually correct.

We don’t need to “modernize it”, we just need to learn how to use it, a lot of conspiracy theorists don’t like it because it tends to be used as a argument against their claims, often successfully. But it does work both ways a conspiracy theorist can use Occams razor to also make a point.

It actually means selecting the explanation that makes the fewest assumptions.The simplest theory that fully accounts for the data will probably not not be the simplest theory that exists. But once we have a theory that is satisfactory, Occam's Razor says that we should not make further assumptions. Not sure about using it to disprove conspiracy theories, because the usual reason they arise is that there is no simple theory that fits the disputed facts. In other words, conspiracy theories are looking for the simple explanation that fits Occam's Razor, and that simplest explanation may be that there actually was a conspiracy.