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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What is Occam's Razor and how is it defined?
Or Kennedy probably acted alone, Kennedy.
He shot himself. From afar.
Yeah, I clearly meant to say, Oswald acted alone because that is the simplest explanation, not this. Very convoluted, deep plot that goes ā that 100 people were involved in to assassinate Kennedy.
So we'll talk about all that because ā That's a teaser. What you're doing right now has become pretty standard. You're using Occam's razor to disprove other people's points. Yeah. This is a total and complete misuse of Occam's Razor. It's not the original intention. The original intention had nothing to do with saying that's wrong.
It is just a heuristic device, a guide, a rule of thumb that tells you that because things tend to be more simple in the universe... If you're doing something, don't make it harder than it has to be. Don't add more to it than is needed to get the job done. And there's actually a couple of ways to put this. And both of them get attributed to William of Ockham, who we'll talk about in a second.
Yeah, Billy Ockham.
But one is called, he sounds like a baseball manager.
Yeah.
But one is called the principle of plurality.
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Chapter 3: Who was William of Ockham and what was his significance?
named John Dunn Scotus, was the one who really encapsulated this principle of plurality and principle of parsimony, and that it was a guy from the 19th century, William Rowan Hamilton, a British mathematician, that he was the one who misattributed it to William of Ockham.
So is William of Ockham just a... A know-nothing?
No. No, his writings definitely included this stuff, and he never took credit for this. Okay. But they think that it was actually Johns Dunn Scott who encapsulated it the way that we tend to think of it now.
So he sold all the bumper stickers.
Right. But William of Ockham thought this way, and he was a radical thinker and a rationalist, as we'll see.
Right.
Right, and like you kind of teased out earlier, he did butt heads with the church over this. He wrote a lot about it, and the church was not into it. And Pope John XXII, they kind of squared off on this. And, of course, the pope wins all battles, at least back then. And he was excommunicated, and several of his monk brothersāand I take that to mean not real brothers, rightā Right.
Were excommunicated in 1328. He went to Munich seeking refuge. He was protected there by Emperor Louis IV. And ultimately he won out because he started writing papers about Pope John XXII saying he's a heretic and people ultimately believed him.
Right. He definitely made some pretty convincing points. And he also, again, like if you're saying, I took a vow of poverty, the church really should too. And the church isn't poverty stricken and you are, that gives you a little more credibility from the outset as well. Sure.
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Chapter 4: How is Occam's Razor misused in modern discussions?
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Chapter 5: What are the principles of plurality and parsimony?
Well, I mean, you have a great section in this article about skeptics. And I know over the years of this show, over the past 10 years, we've had a lot of minor scraps with the skeptic community. Yeah, I'd say pretty minor. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Because, I mean, we have our skeptical side for sure, but there ā
You know, when it comes to skepticism and skeptics, it's sort of on a sliding scale. There's a range of how you might feel about certain things. And you very astutely, I think, point out that if you are a true skeptic, then you will not use Occam's razor like I did earlier as a tool to disprove something. Right. That you will only use it as a tool to consider different explanations.
And there's a big difference there.
There is. So like that whole idea of seeing a ghost on film, right? So there's this example where somebody could say, so you just explained something about light and refracting and something with the film and there was moisture in the air. Isn't it just simpler to say, no, that was a ghost? Exactly. Yeah. And in that case, if you're a skeptic, you would pull a little tuft of your hair out.
Uh-huh. maybe just start scraping at your cheeks until you bleed. Ideally, what you would say is, I get what you're saying, but you're bringing something into this that we don't know exists. Like, we do know light exists. We do know it reflects off of vapor. We do know how this can be captured on film. So, yes, that sounds very complicated, but the ghosts don't exist as far as we know.
We can't sense them empirically. But... I would keep my mind open to the idea that ghosts could conceivably exist. The fact that I just showed that this is the reflection of light off of water vapor in this graveyard does not mean that your hypothesis about ghosts existing is wrong. It just means that's what's in this picture. That's a true skeptic.
Right, because things happen, and later on, the more fantastical... explanation could be true and has been true. And you point out very, very plainly here that there's a couple of problems with this. And to me, this kind of says it all is that it's subjective.
Like the whole notion of determining is this is the most simple explanation is completely subjective because the ghost explanation, one person might say, no, the ghost explanation
explanation is clearly the simplest because i can just say one word ghost see there uh and then you could fire right back well no i can fire back two words um photographic mishap right or maybe just mishap yeah if they want to like keep it completely equal and that's the most simple so it's completely subjective as to which one or anything that it's the most simple
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Chapter 6: How does empirical evidence relate to Occam's Razor?
You just need to provide that basic backbeat and leave room. And then Stuart Copeland comes in the room and laughs and punches you in the face because you look like Sting. Thumps you in the head. You know, so that's entirely subjective when it comes to art. Like, you know, you've been to a museum and seen a 12-inch by 12-inch square painted red.
And then you've also seen Jackson Pollock or Frida Kahlo. So, again, it's just subjective as to simplicity. And maybe, I don't know, can you apply it to art? Am I wrong there?
No, not necessarily. I think that's a good point because it's subjectively valuing something, whether it's complexity or whether it's simplicity. It doesn't mean it's right. That's the point, right? I think that your point is one's not right over the other. Yeah, I think that's my point. And then there's also plenty of circumstances where Occam's razor just doesn't help very much.
Like very famously, Ptolemy's idea of the universe, the earth is the center of the universe, the geocentric universe, I think is what it's called. where the Earth is the center of the universe, the sun, the moon, all the planets and all the stars revolve around Earth, is known to be wrong now.
But for a long time, that's what everyone thought until the Copernican Revolution, where we realized that not our universe, but our solar system is sun-centered. The sun is at the center and the Earth is actually moving around it. The thing is, is if you look at the explanations between the two, They are pretty close, and one's not necessarily less simple than the other.
And if you put them side by side, Occam's ratio doesn't really help. You have to dig a little deeper and figure it out that, oh, actually, no, this one's right based on these observations. We think this one's right. But it has nothing necessarily to do with complexity. And then on the other side of the equation, just because something's complex doesn't mean that it's wrong.
So the next time somebody starts flailing some Occam's razor stuff at you, you tell them, I'm going to thump you. Do you want to be thumped?
Why are you thumping everybody?
Me?
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Chapter 7: What role does Occam's Razor play in scientific reasoning?
A lot of people say that Occam's razor squashes free thought. So I think that does kind of tie in with your art thing. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Like, feel free to go be complex. There's nothing wrong with it. Like, not everything has to be funneled through this Occam's razor thing and made simpler just to make it better.
Yeah.
Well, Chuck, we made it through this one.
Sort of.
It's better than jackhammers, I'll tell you that. I think you did well. I think you did as well, man. All right, thanks. That means that it was a good episode. If you want to learn more about Occam's Razor, you could read my SoSo article on the site at HowStuffWorks.com. Just type it in the search bar. And since I said SoSo, it's time for Listener Mail.
All right, I'm going to call this North Korea part two. We heard from a woman in Australia. We were corrected. It just starts with an S. There is no ah.
Right.
A woman in Australia named Claire Sutherland, who actually had an interaction in a way with North Korea when she was editor at Australian newspaper called Little M, Big X. Okay. It's MX, but... It's just X. Oh, is it?
No, I don't know. They don't say all before Australia, so... Oh, I got you.
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