[ExI] Occam's razor

[Brent Allsop]

Occam's razor is also good for efficient systems design.  If you are just a
farming system, all you need to know is that the sun comes up over your
head (as if you are in the center of the universe) each morning, and goes
down in the evening.  And you can assume that your knowledge of the sun is
the real sun.  Those far simpler models are all you need to do farming in
the most efficient way.

But, if you want to dance in the heavens or engineer consciousness, you
need more capable models.











On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 11:29 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Which is the simpler formulation of Occam's Razor, "the simplest
> explanation is preferred because it involves the fewest assumptions" or
> "the simplest explanation is the best"?  ;>   Ben
>
> The second one should read:  the simplest explanation is the best because
> it's the simplest and involves the fewest assumptions - it does NOT mean
> that it is anywhere closer to the correct answer because we do not know
> that.  bill w
>
> On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:08 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On 20/01/2023 22:53, bill w wrote:
>>
>> Just reading An Immense World, by Ed Jong (author of I Contain
>> Multitudes).  Surprisingly, he makes a common error:  he wrote that Occam's
>> Razor meant that the simplest explanation is the best.  Totally wrong.  It
>> is as likely to be wrong as any other explanation.
>>
>> It means that the simplest explanation is preferred because it involves
>> the fewest assumptions (entities, Occam wrote), and as we know, assumptions
>> can be wrong.
>>
>> Agree?   bill w
>>
>>
>> Well, it's not so much a matter of agreeing, as a matter of are you
>> correct? You are, as far as I understand it.
>>
>> However:
>>
>> Which is the simpler formulation of Occam's Razor, "the simplest
>> explanation is preferred because it involves the fewest assumptions" or
>> "the simplest explanation is the best"?  ;>
>>
>> Ben
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