Is Occam's Razor the most misused tool for thinking that

>>9410282
Yep. Ockham's Razor might be useful as an underdeterminative tool when choosing between competing hypotheses, but it is merely a guiding principle, not an inviolable law. There is no boundary in nature that favors simplicity.

>>9410538
>There is no boundary in nature that favors simplicity.
I can't give you a list of all the phenomena where this statement is untrue off the top of my head but I can recall that at least in organic chemistry Occam's Razor is indeed often used.

>>9410282
>t. Hegel

Semen demons's name?

>>9410804

Anne something or other, idk if we ever got a last name.

>>9410282
Just google it there's tons of articles.

Its not even by ockham

btw there is Ockham's summa logicae in my library, never seen it mentioned here. Should i read it?

>>9410282
It's a very useful trimming tool in statistics and machine learning. Extremely cringy how people generally use it.

>>9410538
>>9410865
What are you all talking about? It's a metaphysical principle about not introducing any entities into a model if they add no explanative power. Metaphysical reductionism is an important phase of any theory development (create a surplus of ideas, prune down to the core, repeat). Occam's razor is an essential practice in order to avoid metaphysical models that have catalogues of countless unnecessary objects.

>>9410282
It is inappropriately used by people like >>9410538 who treat is as a tool for deciding between two hypotheses, rather than a tool one applies to reduce a certain theoretical model to its necessary elements.

Tl;dr there is no god

>>9410557
Often used it may be, it's still not a law of nature. Occam's Razor is not "true" of any phenomena. The simplest explanation is not necessarily the correct explanation.

>>9410980
Still not a law, which is what OP was critiquing. I agree that it's a useful principle, but the process you describe is useful for deciding between competing hypotheses.

>>9411042
Where are you getting your obsession with Law from? OP asked if it was a misused tool. Obviously it is not a law of nature that things will be simple. Occam's razor is therefore a very POOR tool for choosing between models (i.e., which is simplest).

However, it IS a good tool for simplifying a model - using the razor to cut out the unnecessary chaff that do not add any unique explanation for anything.

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Stumbled over this cringy 'application' of Occam's Razor recently

(Goodreads review for Fromm's Art Of Loving)

>>9411636
Holy shit, I hate this person so much. Also, their explanation is actually MORE complex than the simple attraction one... Fucking hell. Can you please tell them I said they were a fucking moron?

>>9411725

Typical pseud man.

>>9411725
whats wrong with this explanation?

>>9412059
He is claiming that he has used Occam's razor to change an an explanation based on simple attraction into an explanation based on system improvement and mutual economic benefit. Occam's razor would be the other way around. He takes a simple concept, makes it more complex and claims to have made it simpler.

Also, how is one's belief that they could gain economic benefit from another easier to measure and test experimentally than simple attraction. Fuck, attraction can even be measured psysiologically so it could be much more robust scientifically.

He is a fucking fool.

>>9410538
>There is no boundary in nature that favors simplicity.
Look up the relationship between complexity and entropy you dipshit.

>>9412650
Relationships were one of the first types of entity to be cut by the razor, dipshit.

>>9410282
She looks like an old lady in a young girl's body

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>>9413217
Everything tries to go towards being as simple and low-energy as possible. Dipshit.

>>9410282
Man, that girl looked better in the thumbnail.

>>9414169
Whoa! You certainly showed me, stuff-in-glasses!

>>9410849
I haven't read it, but it sounds like something that would be worthwhile.

>Ockham's Razor
>Universe exist and is needlessly complex
>Life starts out simple but becomes more complex


???????????????????????????????????????

>>9414670

That's what we mean by misapplying it.

>>9414336

They all do unless they're airbrushed to hell.

>>9414169
You are one of the pseuds OP is referring to.

>>9410282
no

unfortunately, the people who have found much better paradigms for thinking are also a bunch of unbearable aspies who believe insane shit and if I tell you to read them you'll end up completely crazy, so it's just bad luck all around

>>9410849
there's like a 0% chance that reading it is going to be useful to you. medieval philosophy is cool but medieval philosophical texts are also impenetrable and completely insane to the modern reader without a whole lot of preparation

>>9410849
If you want to understand the medieval stride of universals better, yes. In conjunction with Aquinas and Duns Scotus.

In general, I have a hard time with people non-ironically and non-critically applying maxims from medieval monks' discourses as if they hold complete universality outside of their contexts. With that being said, Ockham's razor is really just a simple heuristic tool or rule of thumb to keep analyses from getting cluttered or clouded to maintain a sense of precision and direction. Utilized this way, aint nothing wrong with that mate.

>>9415859
I was simply answering
>There is no boundary in nature that favors simplicity.
Which is false. Systems follow a naturally distributed complexity curve ie they are ultimately heading towards simplicty.

>>9416613
What makes you so sure that is a feature of reality as a whole, because a few mathematical equations seemed to point in that direction? So you automatically suck up the big freeze omega too?

>>9416613
You are conflating order/disorder with complexity/simplicity.....

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>>9416684
>>9416694
https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.6903

>>9416737
You are offering support for my point there. Complexity can increase even as entropy increases...

>>9416761
>>9416761
Everything WILL tend towards simplicity. I never denied that complexity emerges.

>>9416761
But that graph shows that it reaches a maximum. Think of a system with veeery high entropy. It eventually becomes a homogeneous mess. Though I'm interested to know how complexity is defined in this case.

>>9416908
Even so why does this particular method of looking at the disorder of an N body system hold any water here?

>>9417143
I think we're just misunderstanding. I'm just trying to prove
>There is no boundary in nature that favors simplicity.
false.

Now, as with every theory, we can't say that this happens for sure, but it sure looks like it happens this way. I have some literature you might find interesting, if you want.

>>9416737
What makes you so sure this model can and should be applied generally to "nature"?

>>9418012
How is this model of entropy a boundary in nature?

>>9419033
It seems to fit our general understanding of the history of our universe and our predictions on what happens in the future of our universe.
>>9419039
It just shows that nature tends to move towards less complex systems as time passes.

>>9419060
Doesn't seem to fit the evolution of the human species at all, m8. And no, "we" are not all predicting a big freeze.