Occam's Razor Quotes

You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary.

Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.

And this shows that people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth. And it shows that something called Occam's razor is true. And Occam's razor is not a razor that men shave with but a Law, and it says: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Which is Latin and it means: No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary. Which means that a murder victim is usually killed by someone known to them and fairies are made out of paper and you can't talk to someone who is dead.

Here’s a straightforward initial idea: rules should not be multiplied beyond necessity. Alternatively stated, bad laws drive out respect for good laws. This is the ethical—even legal—equivalent of Occam’s razor, the scientist’s conceptual guillotine, which states that the simplest possible hypothesis is preferable.

Dullards would have you believe that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth... but to a mathematical mind, the impossible is simply a theorem yet to be solved. We must not eliminate the impossible, we must conquer it, suborn it to our purpose.

Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.

...with Occam's old razor she could slit the throat of that idea.

shave you mind with occam's razor everyday

The uncertainty principle signaled an end to Laplace's dream of a theory of science, a model of the universe that would be completely deterministic. We certainly cannot predict future events exactly if we cannot even measure the present state of the universe precisely! We could still imagine that there is a set of laws that determine events completely for some supernatural being who, unlike us, could observe the present state of the universe without disturbing it. However, such models of the universe are not of much interest to us ordinary mortals. It seems better to employ the principle of economy known as Occam's razor and cut out all the features of the theory that cannot be observed.

The simplest explanation is usually the right one

Occam's razor?” “It's a principle that says that all things being equal, the simplest conclusion is usually the correct one.

Let's Look at Subjective Religious Experiences This Way: What if ten thousand people went up to a mountain top, saw something, and then they all disagreed with what they saw, even people who largely agreed with each other? Even with this best possible analogy to subjective religious experiences we would still have a reason to think the lack of oxygen caused them all to hallucinate.

You’ve heard of Occam’s Razor, haven’t you?” It was nice to know something for sure. “It’s a basic truism sometimes known as the law of parsimony. ‘All other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

You know how I feel about Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer isn’t usually the right one. Devious and unlikely is everywhere.’ ‘You ought to launch your own theory: Occam’s Beard, you could call it.

People often tell themselves lies, in order to reach what they consider acceptance in difficult situations. In reality, they fool themselves into believing they are healed, until that lie is corrected by time, further information or their own personal growth. True healing comes when we learn to not avoid truth, but face it. Only then will we be set free.

Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation that accommodates all variables is most likely the truth.

Simple is never that simple.

Occam's Razor shaves you closer.

Occam’s razor, the philosophical basis of all science: assume the simplest natural cause. That answer might turn out not to be correct, but we should not resort to more complex reasoning unless it is shown to be necessary.

In order to avoid believing in just one God we are now asked to believe in an infinite number of universes, all of them unobservable just because they are not part of ours. The principle of inference seems to be not Occam's Razor but Occam's Beard: "Multiply entities unnecessarily.

Least hypothesis” held no place of preference; Occam’s razor could not slice the prime problem, the Nature of the Mind of God (might as well call it that to yourself, you old scoundrel; it’s a short, simple, Anglo-Saxon monosyllable, not banned by having four letters—and as good a tag for what you don’t understand as any).

Occam's Razor" was a principle designed to urge one to select the hypothesis or theory that made the fewest assumptions. Though on the surface it favored parsimony and economy, the principle didn't assert that the simplest available theory should be applied. The "razor" wasn't an arbiter between theories. In scientific circles it served as a guide.

When asked about it, Harvey called it his Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.

Harvey called it his Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.

Occam’s razor, or the law of parsimony: Among competing hypotheses, the simplest one was usually correct. Any other explanation defied common sense.

Occam’s Razor and all that: the explanation with the fewest assumptions is more likely to be correct.

However, this is a man whose skin Occam’s Razor cannot cut. The enigma of Thomas P. Wiseau is that there never seems to be a simplest explanation.

Observations in cosmology look just as they can be expected to look if there is no God.

If a sign is not necessary then it is meaningless. That is the meaning of Occam’s razor. (If everything in the symbolism works as though a sign had meaning, then it has meaning.)

You had a corollary to Occam’s Razor,” persisted Syd. “I think it went—‘All other things being equal, the simplest solution is usually stupidity.

Occam’s razor. Always believe the simplest of all available explanations.

Scientists often talk of parsimony (as in "the simplest explanation is probably correct," also known as Occam’s razor), but we should not get seduced by the apparent elegance of argument from parsimony; this line of reasoning has failed in the past at least as many times as it has succeeded. For example, it is more parsimonious to assume that the sun goes around the Earth, that atoms at the smallest scale operate in accordance with the same rules that objects at larger scales follow, and that we perceive what is really out there. All of these positions were long defended by argument from parsimony, and they were all wrong. In my view, the argument from parsimony is really no argument at all – it typically functions only to shut down more interesting discussion. If history is any guide, it’s never a good idea to assume that a scientific problem is cornered.

Unlike some theoretical ideas, Occam’s Razor accords easily with human nature. In general, we seek what we think are simple explanations for events in our lives because we believe the simpler something is, the more fundamental—the more true—it is.

Occam’s Razor: All other things being equal, the simplest solution is usually the correct one. —William of Occam, fourteenth century Darwin’s Blade: All other things being equal, the simplest solution is usually stupidity. —Darwin Minor, twenty-first century

Most people oversimplify Occam’s razor to mean the simplest answer is usually correct. But the real meaning, what the Franciscan friar William of Ockham really wanted to emphasize, is that you shouldn’t complicate, that you shouldn’t “stack” a theory if a simpler explanation was at the ready. Pare it down. Prune the excess.

An inexpressible radiance suffused me. The chair was so much more beautiful than my cinematic memory that speech was inadequate. It was a haven, a refuge; I saw myself lolling in it, churchwarden poised, evolving new cosmogonies, quoting abstruse references to Occam’s razor and Paley’s watch. “Oh, God,” I choked, extracting a fistful of bills. “I—You’ve made me so happy! How much?

Science requires both observation and comprehension. Without observation there are no facts to be comprehended; without comprehension science is mere documentation. The basis for comprehension is theory, and the language of theoretical science is mathematics. Theory is constructed on a foundation of hypothesis; the fewer the hypotheses needed to explain existing observations and predict new phenomena, the more ‘elegant’ the theory

Christian apologists who argue that a story about an empty tomb is convincing evidence of a resurrected body are likely unfamiliar with Occam’s razor, which states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected. They assume that the most likely explanation is miraculous resurrection through some unproven divine connection, but more likely scenarios include a stolen body, a mismarked grave, a planned removal, faulty reports, creative storytelling, edited scriptures, etc. No magic required.

Occam's Razor: The simplest theory that fits the facts corresponds most closely to reality. Fit this, Jillian--why do I treat you so horribly? He grimaced. The simplest theory that encompassed the full range of asinine behavior he exhibited around Jillian was that he was hopelessly in love with her, and if he wasn't careful she would figure it out. He had to be cold, perhaps cruel, for Jillian was an intelligent woman and unless he maintained a convincing facade she would see right through him. He drew a deep breath and steeled his will. "You were saying?" He arched a sardonic brow. Powerful men had withered into babbling idiots beneath the sarcasm and mockery of that deadly gaze. But not his Jillian, and it delighted him as much as it worried him. She held her ground, even leaned closer, ignoring the curious stares and perked ears of the onlookers. Close enough that her breath fanned his neck and made him want to seal his lips over hers and draw her breath into his lungs so deeply that she'd need him to breathe it back into her. She looked deep into his eyes, then a smile of delight curved her mouth. "You do remember," she whispered fiercely. "I wonder what else you lie to me about," she murmured, and he had the dreadful suspicion she was about to start applying a scientific analysis to his idiotic behavior. The she'd know, and he'd be exposed for the love-struck dolt he was.

The PSR gives rise to ontological mathematics, which is just the exploration of all the different ways in which x = 0 can be explored, and x can be any expression at all, provided it can ultimately be reduced to zero. There are infinite mathematical tautologies, all of which are consistent with the PSR and Occam’s razor. Nothing can be simpler in hypothesis than requiring everything to equal zero, and nothing could be richer in phenomena than this strict requirement since there are infinite ways to generate mathematical expressions that equal zero. So, the law of ultimate simplicity leads, inevitably, to endless variety ... all thanks to mathematics and the equals sign. There is no contradiction whatsoever between total simplicity and infinite variety ... that’s exactly why math is so powerful, and can produce the incredibly varied universe we live in ... all of which is simply “nothing” expressed in different ways. Is that not the ultimate miracle? But it’s not a miracle at all. It is the direct consequence of the PSR, hence is the most rational thing of all.

The ontological argument is neither argument nor proof, but merely the psychological demonstration of the fact that there is a class of men for whom a definite idea has efficacy and reality—a reality that even rivals the world of perception. The sensualist brags about the undeniable certainty of his reality, and the idealist insists on his. Psychology has to resign itself to the existence of these two (or more) types, and must at all costs avoid thinking of one as a misconception of the other; and it should never seriously try to reduce one type to the other, as though everything “other” were merely a function of the one. This does not mean that the scientific axiom known as Occam’s razor—“explanatory principles should not be multiplied beyond the necessary”—should be abrogated. But the need for a plurality of psychological explanatory principles still remains. Aside from the arguments already adduced in favour of this, our eyes ought to have been opened by the remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the apparently final overthrow of the ontological proof by Kant, there are still not a few post-Kantian philosophers who have taken it up again. And we are today just as far or perhaps even further from an understanding of the pairs of opposites—idealism / realism, spiritualism / materialism, and all the subsidiary questions they raise—than were the men of the early Middle Ages, who at least had a common philosophy of life.

As the well-known Occam’s razor goes, ‘Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

He continued: “The other reason is, just look what happened. A guy who does dirty tricks is involved, somehow, with a really dirty trick, which could change an important election. He might have been paid for it. Maybe a lot. So if you take the simplest, straightforward answer to a complicated question . . .” “Occam’s razor . . .” Lucas nodded. “. . . the file was going from Tubbs to Smalls. A straightforward political hit.” “So, what you’re saying is, Tubbs probably took the thumb drive to Smalls’s office, and when Smalls was gone, inserted the file.” “Yes. Or more likely, an associate of his did. Whatever happened, for either side, Tubbs was probably murdered to shut him up. Neither one of us is going to be able to avoid that . . . fact,” Lucas said.

Occam’s razor is summarized for our purposes in this way: Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.

You have to disentangle the details. You have to hold up every one independently, and ask, "How do we know *this* detail?" Someone sketches out a picture of humanity's descent into nanotechnological warfare, where China refuses to abide by an international control agreement, followed by an arms race ... Wait a minute—how do you know it will be China? Is that a crystal ball in your pocket or are you just happy to be a futurist? Where are all these details coming from? Where did *that specific* detail come from?

Occam's Razor is a term plagiarized by the fact it is not easy to find its source and meaning. My attempts to find an author lead me nowhere, and I can only find unsatisfactory descriptions of how it works. Therefore, it is meaningless to me and I will use it as a placeholder to define: That which is unnecessary tends to be false. Necessity is by purpose. Therefore, purpose writes itself. Now, I have a tool.

My second concern about Occam’s Razor is just a matter of fact. The world is more complicated than any of us would have been likely to conceive. Some particles and properties don’t seem necessary to any physical processes that matter—at least according to what we’ve deduced so far. Yet they exist. Sometimes the simplest model just isn’t the correct one.

Occam's Razor [10w] I shaved with Occam's razor and he shaved with mine.

Shaved Pussy vs. Occam's Razor Her pussy was shaved and elegant, stripped to its bare essence, without the unruly tangle of unkempt assumptions or broken promises. Like the windows of a cathedral, her honey pot illuminated shadow, sans the gratuitous mechanisms of pivots, friction or butt hinges. Yea, let us fall to knees and pray, lips pressed to the holy grail. O Lord, help me bring this maiden to the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. God, I am uplifted by your beloved gift, unworthy of your bounty. Now, I shall spell the Lord's Prayer in Latin, let every letter be enunciated... et ne nos inducas in tentationem; lead us not into temptation, but into elation. I hear her coming. Amen

the principle of Occam’s razor whispers to me

The PSR is reflected in points traveling in complex-numbered Euler circles where no point is privileged over any other. From this motion, we get sine and cosine waves, even and odd functions, symmetry and antisymmetry, orthogonality and non-orthogonality, phase, straight-line radii, right-angled triangles, Pythagoras’ theorem, the speed of mathematics (c), π, e, i, Fourier mathematics … and from all of that we get the whole of mathematics (eternal, necessary and mental; Being), and thus the whole of science (temporal, contingent and material; Becoming). And that is the whole universe explained. Nothing else is required. The PSR gives us mathematics, mathematics gives us science, and that’s all we need for the universe: science with a mathematical and rational core rather than with a material and observable core. What could be more rational and logical?

The only religion that could ever be taken seriously is rationalism religion. The likes of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel, and Godel have done the hard work necessary to make such a religion viable. Wouldn't you want a religion that every logician, mathematician, philosopher, and scientist on earth could embrace? In fact, that religion already exists. It's called ontological mathematics, predicated on the principle of sufficient reason and Occam's razor. It constitutes a coherent, holistic, a priori, rationalist, analytic, deductive religion, metaphysics and physics. Ontological mathematics explains all.

And that's why you don't believe in magic or fate or reincarnation? Because they're too complicated, theoretically speaking?" "Yes." "How did you learn about Occam's razor?" "My father was a medieval scholar." She shivered as she felt his hand glide along the side of her neck. "Sometimes we studied together." Rohan pried the wire handle of the magic lantern from her shaky grip, and set it near their feet. "Did he also teach you that the complicated explanations are sometimes more accurate than the simple ones?

It is vain to do with more what can be done with less. —WILLIAM OF OCCAM (1300–1350), originator of “Occam’s Razor

One Lying Jeep by Stewart Stafford Pavlov's dogs got hold of, Occam's Razor and shaved, Archimedes in the bath while, Pureeing Newton's apple core. Ecstasy = McDonald's Squared, Leaning Tower of Pizza Experiment, A swirl of Higgs Boson minestrone, Quaffed blind with Halley's Vomit. Ignore a Big Bang in your black hole, Red Giant piggybacking a White Dwarf, Massive obelisk stuck in the Stargate, Happy Doomsday to you - lights out. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

How would reality calculate the non-simplest answer without first calculating the simplest answer. Having calculated the simplest answer why would it then dismiss it? What would reality’s reason be for dismissing the simplest answer? No such reason is possible or conceivable. How would reality go about calculating the non-simplest answer, given that there are infinite of them? It is literally impossible for reality to calculate and implement anything other than the simplest answer. That is 100% guaranteed, and you are utterly irrational and illogical if you contend otherwise.

Extremism and outrage are simple, relentless, attention-seeking. Rationality and prudence are difficult, exhausting, mundane. Occam’s razor works in reverse when it comes to answers: If the answer is easy, it is wrong.

There is a logic principle called Occam’s Razor. It states that, all else being equal, the simplest explanation is most likely correct. The explanation that alcohol is an addictive substance is far simpler than the convoluted theories (none of which we can prove or satisfactorily explain) around personality and physical and mental defects leading to alcoholism.

Philosophies turned away from the world were not to Hahn’s taste. According to him, however, they could still be found in the systems of German idealism—and how could it be otherwise? The Germans are known, after all, as the nation of thinkers and poets. But a new day is slowly breaking, and the liberation is coming from the same land that gave birth to political liberation—namely, England: the English, after all, are known as the nation of shopkeepers. And it is surely no accident that one and the same nation gave the world both democracy, on the one hand, and the rebirth of a philosophy turned toward the world, on the other; nor is it an accident that the same land that saw the beheading of a king also witnessed the execution of metaphysics. Yet the weapons of a philosophy that is turned toward the world are not the executioner’s sword and axe—it is not as bloodthirsty a beast as that—though its weapons are sharp enough. And today I want to talk about one of these weapons—namely, Occam’s razor.

used Occam’s razor—the principle that given more than one explanation, you should begin by choosing the simplest one—and plausible reasoning to arrive at a neat formula for determining the “correct” price of a warrant.

Occam’s razor, which in colloquial terms means “keep it simple.

In science we look to Occam’s razor (or scientific parsimony) to understand phenomena, the concept that the best hypothesis is the one that requires the fewest assumptions.

Maybe. Occam’s disposable Bic razor might suggest so.

The simplest explanation is usually the right one,’ business.” “Occam’s razor,

Why not deploy Occam’s razor? That’s what we do. Always go for the simplest answer. Don’t confuse yourself by looking for “fancy” answers that you find more psychologically engaging and interesting.

Who else is like me? An INTJ? Fuck your type. I am a CUNT through and through. Give me mud and guts. Blood and cuts. Occam's Razor to reasons jugular. You say your point flows from peak to trough, but your highs I only know as lows. The trench is my home. The machine gun is my welcome mat. I may die on paper, but I am no forgotten soldier.

In the twenty-first century, American democracy slit its wrists on Occam’s Razor, and no one answered for the blood.

Haven’t you heard of Occam’s Razor: once you have a perfectly simple explanation for something, you don’t go looking for ever more complicated ways of explaining the very same thing?

The Moral Compass Theory, which posits that the reason for our existence is morality, is valid due to Occam's Razor.

This has given rise to a misconception known as ‘Occam’s razor’ (named after the fourteenth-century philosopher William of Occam, but dating back to antiquity), namely that one should always seek the ‘simplest explanation’. One statement of it is ‘Do not multiply assumptions beyond necessity.’ However, there are plenty of very simple explanations that are nevertheless easily variable (such as ‘Demeter did it’). And, while assumptions ‘beyond necessity’ make a theory bad by definition, there have been many mistaken ideas of what is ‘necessary’ in a theory. Instrumentalism, for instance, considers explanation itself unnecessary, and so do many other bad philosophies of science, as I shall discuss in Chapter 12

Occam’s razor: when you hear hoofbeats, think horse, not zebras.

principle of Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

Looking out the window as I dressed, I couldn’t even see the garage. Slowly falling in thick, heavy flakes, it reminded me of a flurry of cherry blossoms torn suddenly from their stems. But a flurry without end. I went downstairs and paused on the back doorstep, taking it in. This kind of snowstorm-dense, silent, and windless-has an effect unlike any other weather phenomenon. Rather than producing sound, it absorbs it; instead of displaying great havoc, it cuts off your sight. And yet it permeates every sense, less like an act of nature and more like a spiritual event. Most people walk around in such a snowfall as if blessed with new insight-or at least lost in childlike wonder.

The very fact that we believe ourselves free, means, by the strict application of Occam’s Razor, that we are free. To argue otherwise is to make the insane claim that the real world, for no conceivable reason or purpose, invents illusions. If that were true, we could never know anything at all because absolutely everything could be an illusion. We would be living in the fantasy world created by Descartes’ malevolent demon. In rather similar terms, fundamentalist materialists propose that a more rational alternative to the concept of “God”, which they say explains nothing, is scientific randomness. However, randomness also explains nothing since it operates via miracles happening for no reason, and is even more of a mystery than God!

People hurt each other, no matter what they got goin' on. We're messy, and none of us see eye to eye even when we think we do. But... we try anyway. [Gage Lombardi]

I'm animal person, period," Seong-Jae replied, opening his eyes relucantly. "They do not ever need anything from me except that I am myself, and that I love them. If only people were so uncomplicated, life would be much simpler.

Occam’s razor told her that the police were right, but she couldn’t believe it.

JONES IS BOTH symptom and cause of how knee-jerk, florid conspiracism has become rampant and normalized in America, a fixture of the way people now think and talk, eclipsing simpler Occam’s razor understandings. Let me repeat once again: I’m not saying that large secret plots haven’t existed in the past and don’t exist now. For decades, people in the U.S. government, especially those whose work involves high-stakes secrecy, did a lot to make Americans start imagining conspiracies everywhere. The Warren Commission investigation of the Kennedy assassination was full of bungles and became a growth medium in the conspiracists’ petri dishes for an infinity of bacterial theories—even though its essential conclusion was almost certainly correct. The government did lie about UFO sightings over the years—in order to cover up air force surveillance aircraft experiments. The Watergate burglary and cover-up were conspiracies—and promptly exposed, investigated, and punished. Among the most significant recent conspiracies, the cover-up by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and elite of its sexually predatory clergy was finally exposed—after we’d wasted vast resources and ruined hundreds of lives exposing and prosecuting a satanic sexual abuse conspiracy that didn’t exist.

However, this is a man whose skin Occam’s Razor cannot cut.

Occam’s razor. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the truth.

Occam's Razor. I'm tempted to add another principle, but it's really more of a wish than a rule. I'm referring to Occam's razor, which states in essence, "All things being equal, the simplest explanation is best." Einstein put it somewhat differently: "A physical theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." The last phrase is important because, as Schwinger said, "nature does not always select what we, in our ignorance, would judge to be the most symmetrical and harmonious possibility". If the theory were as simple as possible, there would be just one field (or perhaps none!), and the world would be very uninteresting-not to mention uninhabitable. I think it can be said that the equations of QFT are indeed about as simple as possible, but no simpler.

The real meaning of Occam’s razor, Rosemary believed, was that explanations and solutions should be free from elements that have no real bearing on the system in question—that solving problems isn’t so much about simplifying them as it is about properly and realistically reducing them to only what’s relevant.

The complex order we now observe [in the universe] could *not* have been the result of any initial design built into the universe at the so-called creation. The universe preserves no record of what went on before the big bang. The Creator, if he existed, left no imprint. Thus he might as well have been nonexistent.

The real meaning of Occam’s razor, Rosemary believed, was that explanations and solutions should be free from elements that have no real bearing on the system in question—that solving problems isn’t so much about simplifying them as it is about properly and realistically reducing them to only what’s relevant. And

Know what you know. Most people oversimplify Occam’s razor to mean the simplest answer is usually correct. But the real meaning, what the Franciscan friar William of Ockham really wanted to emphasize, is that you shouldn’t complicate, that you shouldn’t “stack” a theory if a simpler explanation was at the ready. Pare it down. Prune the excess. Andrew

Easy, hummingbird. I wouldn’t betray your secrets. I’m your friend. I think…” A brief, electrifying pause. “In another lifetime, we would be more than friends.” Her heart turned in a painful revolution behind her ribs. “There’s no such thing as another lifetime. There can’t be.” “Why not?” “Occam’s razor.

To all appearances, ‘BigSeanD’ fitted snugly into the online community, where the prevailing attitude resembled what you’d get if you spliced the DNA of an only child, a Daily Mail reader and a viciously toxic bacillus: an organism that was self-obsessed, full of pent-up rage, and sprayed poisonous shit everywhere. Symptoms included a tendency to lapse into CAPITALS, the dismissal of all dissent as Establishment toadying, and a blinding ignorance of Occam’s razor.

Beauty = elegance = economy = simplicity. This is not only the simplest possible world but also the most beautiful possible world. The only thing that makes our world ugly is human behavior! That’s because humans have failed to know themselves. They have over-complicated everything.

You can never get enough generality. The more general solution the better. The solution to existence is the most general solution of all, the solution least infected by particularity. That is its defining quality. The entire way of thinking mathematically – in terms of simplicity, generality, tautology, elegance, beauty, stability, the eternal, the necessary, coherence, the analytic, the a priori – is totally different from the way a scientist thinks, which is always mired in particularity, inelegance, ugliness, the temporal, the contingent, the ad hoc, the arbitrary, the heuristic, the speculative; in Feynman’s crude guessing game.

Zero is the ultimate nullibist and holenmerist entity. Zero is whole in every number, and whole in every part of mathematics. The universe that we all experience exists purely because zero is nullibist and holenmerist … because zero contains all numbers … because zero is exactly where “something” = “nothing”. Reality exists solely because something = nothing. Zero is everything. Zero contains everything. Zero is everywhere. Zero is whole everywhere, and whole in everything. Nothing rivals the incredible power and beauty of zero. It’s the ultimate expression of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and Occam’s razor. What could be simpler than nothing? The universe of zero is the simplest possible universe and the best possible universe.

Occam’s razor uses the least energy; it is the most economic solution. Nature always operates this way, and it does so because it is mathematical. If it were not mathematical, it could never do what it does and would degenerate into instability and chaos.

Occam’s razor is an important tool in science. It shouldn’t be oversold; nature can be complex and bizarre. But as a rule of thumb, it is most sensible to adopt the simplest explanation for an observation until the evidence overwhelms it.

O the Swiss and the Swedes Are at it all right A bore of a war And no end in sight They’re killing each other With unlikely skill Who’d have believed it Neutral and Nil It’s a bore What a bore It’s a bore of a war Logically sound But soft at the core When Vienna surrenders To Cambridge symbolic The null class is Z The peace terms a frolic O bore What a bore It’s a bore of a war Deft but bereft Of a Renaissance roar VOICE 1: What’s black and white, left or right, growing little and has no middle? O bring on a genuine algebra war Del Ferro, Fontana, Cardano, Fior None of these formalist postulate sets Less of this Either and Or Fourth dimension Yorkshireman and versifying Jew Pedagogic modern logic came too late for you One is one, two is one, three is two anew Theory of invariants Turbulence serene Higher space contains a trace Of double umbral sheen (...) O recite a litany in extremis To the peaceful end of logical premise Our Lady of Inferred Entities Prey on us Wielder of Occam’s Razor Spare our multiplicities Expounder of the Unthinkable Have mercy on our system of signs Elucidator of Logical Form Guide our superstitions Annihilator of Tautologies Bless our refrains Language Inviolate Forgive us our stammer

The simplest solution is generally the correct one—what philosophers refer to as the Razor of Occam.

Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

idea of Occam’s razor, a rule of thumb in problem-solving that recommends a preference for simplicity. When choosing between alternative explanations or solutions to a problem, embrace the less complicated: it will probably be more accurate than an intricate or elaborate answer with lots of parts. The idea was set forth (in a somewhat different form) by the English friar William of Ockham in the fourteenth century; the “razor” is to shave away the unnecessary to focus on the essential.

Occam’s razor,

Let us review three cases from widely separated locations in the world. A Tungus shaman in Siberia agrees to the request of tribal hunters to locate game during a poor hunting season. Using a drumming technique, he enters an ASC and provides information to help his hunters. The Western interpretation—if it accepts at all the validity of this kind of information—would be that the shaman calculates the behavior of the game according to weather and well-known environmental conditions. In other words, his is information based on cognitive processing of sensory data. The explanation of the shaman himself is different: Guidance has been provided by forest spirits. On another continent, hunters of the Kalahari !Kung tribe leave the settlement to hunt for a period that may last anywhere from two days to two weeks. The tribe’s timely preparation for the return of successful hunters is necessary for processing the game. The people left behind make the appropriate steps long before the hunters’ reappearance. Their foreknowledge of the hunters’ return could be explained rationally by attributing it to a messenger sent ahead or the use of tam-tam drums or smoke signals. The tribesmen report, however, that it is the spirit of ancestors who informs them when the hunters will return. Next, we move to the Amazon basin. The Shuar shaman is facing a new disease in the community. An herbal remedy is sought by adding leaves of a candidate plant into the hallucinogenic beverage ayahuasca, a sacrament indigenous to the Upper Amazon region. The shaman drinks it and, upon return to ordinary consciousness, decides the usefulness of the plant in question. Is his decision based on accumulation of ethnobotanical knowledge of several generations in combination with trial and error? The headhunter Shuar are not likely to be merciful to an ineffective medicine man, and his techniques must be working. As Luis Eduardo Luna explained to me, according to ayahuasqueros, the spirit of a new plant reveals itself with the help of the spirits associated with the ayahuasca. Sometimes, they also tell which plant to use next. We can point to the following contradiction: Healers from different cultures are unequivocal in their interpretation of the source of knowledge, whereas rational thinkers use diverging, unsystematic explanations. Which side should be slashed with Occam’s razor? Also called the “principle of parsimony,” Occam’s razor is usually interpreted to mean something like “Do not multiply hypotheses unnecessarily” or “Do not posit pluralities unnecessarily when generating explanatory models.” The principle of parsimony is used frequently by philosophers of science in an effort to establish criteria for choosing from theories with equal explanatory power. At first glance it is the “primitives” who multiply causes unnecessarily by referring to the supernatural. Yet Occam’s razor may be applied easily to the rational view, if those arguments are less parsimonious.

According to Occam’s razor, the right answer is always the simplest answer, the one requiring the fewest assumptions.