All thing's being equal, Occam's Razor can be a helpful rule to follow.
There's one really serious catch though... Whenever human beings are involved (and especially when a goal is to misdirect/confuse/obfuscate) you might as well toss Occam's Razor. It's too easy to create situations or perceptions where it consistently leads someone in the wrong direction.
Take "hearing voices" as an example.
Following Occam's Razor you'd probably tend to favor a simple explanation like schizophrenia over more complicated and involved ones. If by some impossible feat you ruled out the all encompassing schizophrenia you'd probably tend to favor a neighbor's loud TV or radio over piezoelectric transducers and hypnosis.
In reality - crazy as it seems - you would end up favoring the wrong explanation every time you looked for an explanation. Someone went to the trouble to hide what's going on in an ever changing shell game.
And Occam's Razor was made worthless.
No comments:
Post a Comment