Occam’s razor (from FOLDOC).

The English philosopher, William of Occam (1300-1349) propounded Occam’s Razor:

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

(Latin for “Entities should not be multiplied more than necessary”). That is, the fewer assumptions an explanation of a phenomenon depends on, the better it is.

Or simple is better than complex. But also it’s about assumptions, the less assumptions the better.

Now because FOLDOC is from the Imperial Computing lab in London, they also link it with the same thought I had, the Keep It Simple Stupid principle. The KISS principle is simpler to remember than Occam’s razor, thus, by Occam’s razor I now rename Occam’s razor to KISS. Or maybe ‘Keep it simple’, then there’s one less acronym in the world.

If we’re going to have philosophy for everyone, the language has to be in terms that everyone understands. There is of course beauty here too in this simplicity as poets and writers show us.

“Perfection is reached not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to subtract.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Here for example is simple Wikipedia’s page for Occam’s razor.

The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct.

Their Latin translation comes as: “More things should not be used than are necessary“. Also “Occam’s razor only applies when the simple explanation and complex explanation both work equally well.”, and “the sentence is not really about things but about explanations”.

Perhaps I should modify my version to:

A simple explanation is better than a complex one.

Ptolemy also described it nice and simply: “explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible”.

There is a tension between ‘less assumptions’ and ‘simple’. Making assumptions can simplify things, but can also lead to worse explanations.

But for now I’ll just stick to ‘Keep it simple’ instead of ‘Occam’s razor’.