May 24, 2018 • 41 mins
You know the rule that says the simplest explanation is probably the correct one? That’s called a razor and it’s meant to guide logic. But over time it’s become a broadsword used to disprove opposing arguments. Learn how to spot a faux skeptic in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, tour announcement, it's just me. Chuck. Josh isn't
here for this one. We had to get it out
the door. So apologies for fifty of stuff you should know.
But we have added two dates to uh the two
thousand eighteen tour, and there may be another couple to come.
You never know. But everybody, we asked Salt Lake City
ins and Utahn's should we come there, and boy, we
(00:24):
heard from you, so we're coming. It's that easy. Tuesday October,
we are coming to Salt Lake City for an evening
with stuff you should know at the Grand Theater and
we are super excited. I'll tell you what. You guys
really came through on the emails and social meds and
let us know that we would see some love if
we came to Salt Lake City, a city we've talked
(00:46):
about often in the past. So we are a coming Tuesday,
October twenty three, and we decided, hey, we're gonna be
out there, we might as well add another city that
we've never been to. So it is your lucky day,
Phoenix eras Zona and dare I say, Tucson and in
the Greater Phoenix area drive over to Phoenix and come
see us on Wednesday October at the Van Buren. And
(01:11):
this is also an evening with stuff you should know.
I don't even know what that means, but it sounds
a little more regal than normal. So come see us
October Salt Lake City and Phoenix. Uh, you know what,
I don't even know if tickets are on sale. I
believe by the time this announcement goes up, tickets will
be on sale, and you can go to the Van
Buren website or to the Grand Theater website to get
(01:34):
your ticket links. I will try and have them up
very soon on s y s K live dot com,
but I don't know if I'll get to that today,
but look forward soon and we can't wait to see you, guys.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(01:59):
and there's Charles Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer Tristan
over there, so it's stuff you should know. I don't
know how these are going to release, but as you've noticed,
Tristan weirdly grew out his mustache in the last hour. Again,
he's quick, He's very fast. He can make it go
in and out, in and out. Woooo what is that?
(02:21):
It's like he's growing his mustache and it's sucking it
back in, sucking it back in, you know, like a
reverse Plato. Right. Do you remember that Plato set with
the like a little meat grinder. No, there was one
where like you could grow a mustache on I dude,
I think I remember that. I would imagine if you
could reverse it too. It was called the Plato Nightmare set. Yeah,
(02:48):
is that your nightmare? Growing Plato mustache? Waking up like that? Yeah,
I've had that dream about once a week for about
thirty five years. Like all the rest of you is chuck,
but just your mustaches Wallace and alm it. Yeah, dude. Yesterday,
I h there was a bad smell. Emily and I
(03:08):
were having a glass of wine at a wine bar
and there was a bad smell nearby. I think it
was a dumpster or something. And they were growing fresh
herbs at this wine bar, and I rubbed a rosemary
bush and then swiped it all over my mustache. Uh In.
Emily's mind was blown. She was just like, oh my God,
(03:30):
like I can't believe, like that's an actual use for
facial hair. Yeah, I guess just to hold in that smell.
It was like, well, you can wipe it on your
upper lip. It's probably the same thing. Maybe the hair
retains more essential oils. Which essential oils? Man, people are
clamoring for that episode. Yeah, we should do that. We
(03:51):
will eventually. It's been a big part of my life
for two or twelve years now, essential oils. We'll talk
about it someday, but not today. No, no, because Chuck's
gonna stumble through a philosophy podcast. It's a yeah, I
guess it is philosophy. It's the philosophy of knowledge. Epistemology
is another way to put it. But specifically, Chuck, we're
(04:12):
talking today about a little ditty you may have heard
of before called acams razor, called the Gambler. Have you
have you ever you've heard of ocums razor before? Right, Well,
so much so that I thought for sure we had
covered this, But um, I realized that we just talked
about it quite a bit in the scientific methods. I'm
(04:33):
not at all surprised because a lot of people say
that the basis of science, which is how humans approach
um nature in our universe and us and everything. Scientifically,
the basis of that is ocams razor and if if
acams razor sounds familiar but you can't quite place it,
You've probably heard it as something like um, given two
(04:57):
possible outcomes or explanations or whatever, the simplest version is
probably the right one. Yeah, it's a pretty even that,
in its simplicity is is beautiful. The mere statement itself
is an example of its simplicity and how wonderful it
can be just to think, like, yeah, you know what,
(05:18):
let's get through all the gobbledegook. I think the easiest
way to explain this, whether it's a a what do
you call the orb and a photo Yeah, it's not.
It's not your great grandfather coming to visit you on
a different plane. It's really just an error with your photograph.
(05:40):
Or it's a it's the flash um yeah, reflecting off
like water vapor in the air. Or Kennedy probably acted alone.
Kennedy he shot himself from afar. Yeah. I clearly meant
to say Oswald acted alone, because that is a plus explanation,
(06:01):
not this very convoluted deep um plot that goes that
a hundred people were involved in to assassinate Kennedy. So
we'll talk about all that, because what you're doing right
now is has become pretty standard. You're using ocams razor
to disprove other people's points. There's this is a total
(06:25):
and complete misuse of ocams razors, not the original intention.
The original intention had nothing to do with saying that's wrong.
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 if you're doing something,
(06:49):
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 will talk about in a second. But
one is called he sounds like a baseball manager. But
one is called the principle of plurality harder to say
(07:11):
fast than you would think, and that is translated from
the Latin plurality should not be positive without necessity. And
the other is the principle of parsimony, which is it
is pointless to do with more what is done with less.
From what I understand, they are one and the same
Oh really, I could not find anyone who could explain
(07:33):
the difference. And I see them interchangeably, not just like
on some dudes blog, but unlike you know, the the
the Internet Encyclopedia Philosophy or the Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy, like
they don't seem to be different. Well, parsimony, it seems
different to me because that specifically is like not using resources,
(07:56):
not spending money if you don't have to. And that's
SEMs different than plurality. Okay, well then then let's explore it.
So plurality adding to something, doubling something, maybe just making
it more than just the singular. He's saying plurality should
not be positive without necessity, right, so I guess what
he's saying. Then if they are different, then if you're
(08:19):
if you're guessing at something, if you're trying to explain something,
don't make it harder than it is, don't make it
bigger than is absolutely necessary to explain its sense. Or
and this is a really big point that we'll see
in a minute. William of Ockham really was saying, don't
don't add on to something beyond what you know to
(08:41):
be true and correct, which a lot of people over time.
And I think he actually maybe explicitly wasn't empirersist have
said William of Ockham wasn't empirersist. He was saying that
that you need to experience things through your senses to
know that they are true. Yes, empirical evidence if I
can look at it or smell it, or taste it
(09:03):
or feel it. What's the fifth one? Uh, tickle it,
tickle it. And then the sixth one, of course we
know means Bruce Willis is really dead. See the ghost
of it. Uh. Yeah, if there's no empirical evidence, if
you cannot experience it with one of your senses, then um,
it's it's poo pooed. So so it is so. And
(09:24):
those two things, like you really especially modern science, especially
science these days, you put them together. It's given two things.
Go with the simpler explanation, and you don't don't believe
anything that you can't sense one way or another through
your senses empirically. Right, you put those together, you have
the basis for modern science. And so the idea that
(09:46):
that that things that are simpler are better, or the
idea that the universe is simpler, Like when you start
to think about it. It's all over the place, right,
Like the the idea that the you universe is based
on simpler being better is found everywhere, right, So, like
there's things that things have fewer parts, things that require
(10:11):
less energy, the encapsulation of larger ideas into smaller amounts
of words or theories or whatever. All these things are
very much prized by humanity. So it just kind of
makes sense that acams razor is a sensible thing and
that you could actually use it to uncover the mysteries
of the universe. But again, that's not really necessarily the case,
(10:33):
to tell you the truth. No, I mean, there's there's
gonna be a lot of uh and and this stuff
is kind of fun, just a lot of back and
forth on Acam's razor throughout this whole thing, because there
is no idea and that's kind of part of the
whole jam of Bockham's razor, because there is no right
or wrong here. You know, what's weird is right? A
lot of people point to it though that it's this
(10:55):
is right. I just proved you wrong, razor and that's
just not true. And all right, should we take a
break early? Okay? Yeah, I think we should take a
break now because I need to get my head wrapped
around this, and we'll come back getting the way back
machine and visit Billy Ackum. Okay, so now Billy Ackum
(11:35):
sounds like a recording star. Oh sure, like Billy Ocean. Yeah,
get also my razor and get into my car, so
that we should say the razor too. It's a philosophical term.
It's the term of philosophy. The razor used to scrape
away unnecessary stuff. So it's Acom's razor. So let's go
(11:59):
back and me Billy Yakum shown. Yeah. And you wrote
this by the way back in your in your article
righting days uh, And you point out very astutely that
this is from a time in our history of the
world where you might not have had a surname. You
(12:19):
may have been William of Ockham, which is the case here,
which is in England. And he lived between about twelve
eighty five and thirty nine, and he was a philosophical
dude and a Franciscan monk. And he very much like
you point out, took his valid poverty very seriously and
lived a very meager, humble life. Yeah he did. He
(12:45):
also expected the church to take the same vow of party,
and he actually butted heads with the Church quite a bit,
so much so that he ended up getting excommunicated, as
we'll see. But he um, he was the real deal
as far as like a true believer went. The weird
thing about William of Akam was that he was also
a genuinely independent thinker and a rationalist, which at the
(13:10):
time rationalism and the church did not go hand in hand.
They were there was really not much rationalism. So for
an idea of the idea for this this upstart Franciscan
monk to start questioning the ideas of the church. And
not only that, but how the the leaders of the
church conducted themselves and how much money they surrounded themselves
(13:32):
with and how much power they had politically. This is
it was a big deal, all right. Yeah. And he
is not He did not invent this line of thought, um,
as much as he's probably attributed to this to people
that uh just know him from like a jeopardy board.
He h. This is already a line of thought well
established by this time in the medieval times, and he
(13:54):
was just he kind of boiled it down to those
two sentences that you were talking about. So in one
could understand it, he could put it on a bumper
sticker and a T shirt and sell it. Right. So
it was Aristotle who was the guy who came up
with this idea first, that that simplicity equals perfection, and
perfection equal simplicity, said, the more perfect a nature is,
(14:16):
the fewer means it requires for its operation. Right, So
that makes sense. That speak to me. But then over time,
in between Aristotle and William it kind of got expanded.
So let me give you an example of that same
thought from Robert gross Test who was an early scientist
also a theologian I believe too. Here was his his
(14:36):
version of it, That is better and more valuable, which
requires fewer other circumstances being equal, For if one thing
we're demonstrated from many and another thing from fewer equally
known premises, clearly that is better, which is from fewer
because it makes us no quickly, just as a universal
demonstration is better than particular because it produces knowledge from
(14:58):
fewer premises. Is that similarly in natural science, in moral science,
and in metaphysics, the best is that which needs no premises,
and that better that which needs the fewer other circumstances
being equal. Boy, the ironies there are rich, right. So
within less than a hundred years, William of Ockham comes
(15:19):
along and he's just like, plurality should not be positive
without necessity Robert, and Robert was like, well, yeah, I
guess that's one way you could say it. So so
I want to say something though, Um, before we keep going,
Chuck actually found a correction of my own article that
I missed before. What's that? It turns out that they
(15:39):
think now that a another um theologian slash scientist from
uh William of Ockham's era named John Dunn Scottis was
the one who really encapsulated this this principle of plurality
and principle of parsimony, and that it was a guy
from the nineteenth century, William Rowan Hamilton's Irish mathematician, that
(16:01):
he was the one who misattributed it to William a. Ackam.
So is William Avakam just a uh and no nothing, no, no,
His writings definitely included this stuff and he never took
credit for this. But they think that that it was
actually um John's done scott Is who encamped who encapsulated
(16:21):
it the way that we tend to think of it
now bumper stickers, but right, But William of Akam thought
this way and he was a radical thinker and a rationalist,
as we'll see. 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 the what is that
(16:43):
twenty two? Um? He they kind of squared off on this,
and of course the pope wins all battles, at least
back then. Uh. And he was excommunicated and several of
his his monk brothers, and I take that to mean
not real. There's right, we're excommunicated. In thirty eight he
(17:04):
went to Munich seeking refuge. He was protected there by
Emperor Louis the fourth, and uh, Ultimately he went out
because he started writing papers about Pope John the twenty
two saying he's a heretic, and people ultimately believed him. Right.
He he definitely made some pretty convincing points. And he
(17:26):
also again like if you're saying I took avour 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 outside as well. So there there's some
reasons why William of Bakum is this theologian, a devout
Franciscan monk, is looked upon as one of the fathers
(17:46):
of western um science like the foundation of Western science right,
or science in general um. And the reason why is
he argued against the prevailing ideas at the time, which
is called medieval synthesis. And this is very much championed
by Thomas Aquinas, who's a famous theologian. I believe he
was a saint, and one of the reasons he was
(18:08):
canonized was because of this. Thinking about this, but the
whole medieval synthesis thing was that God was first and
foremost everything. Right, you were, you were a member of
the church, just as much as you were a member
of your country, a citizen of your country. Um. All
human knowledge came from God, and Thomas Aquinas he was
(18:31):
it wasn't just like the end. Thomas Aquinas used philosophy
to prove that sentiment that all human knowledge came from God,
and here is how. And basically it took the idea
of cause and effect and said that you can trace
every effect back to a cause, back to another effect
back to another cause. But ultimately you were going to
end up on God, and that all of our conceptions
(18:52):
of everything arose from God's conception, and that God will
that we understand things this way, which means that this
is the perfect way to understand it, which means it's
right right. So that is not what William Wacam thought.
He was again a rationalist who said, um, no, we
tend to think things or things because that is that
(19:13):
arises in the human mind from cognition, not from God.
And this dude was not a heretic. He believed that
you didn't apply rationalism to God, that God required faith,
and rationalism stood on its own, it was a different thing,
and you couldn't know God through your senses. God was elsewhere.
(19:33):
Leave God out of this. And the fact that he
was able to really successfully lay like a philosophical groundwork
for this, a rational groundwork for it. It's one thing
today to be like I'm a secular humanist. You know,
I'm rational. Forget the church that's today. This is at
a time when this guy is saying this and the
(19:53):
Church has the power to burn you at the stake.
Like he was. He was a stand up rational thing, right,
which kind of makes him a hero of rationality today.
But don't. And this is another perfect example of how
Akam's razor gets confused. Akam himself gets confused too. He's
a hero of science. But it was also one of
the more devout human beings walking the earth at the time.
(20:16):
It was a monk for basically his whole life, and
also had a metal band called Medieval Synthesis. Oh that
is a good name, isn't it. So he was he
was just a conundrum. Yeah, he was a conundrum for sure.
And again he got excommunicated. He had to escape by horse,
stolen horse. I mean, he was not very monk like. No,
But all right, So we were talking earlier about empirical evidence,
(20:39):
um and how that kind of fits in here, and
the fact that if you can't you know, like you
you know the sky is blue because you look up
and you see it's blue. You you know a bird
makes a whistle because you can hear the bird make
a whistle. So uh, it's very easy to sort of
use that um and say sure, but if you don't,
(21:02):
if you can't see it or hear it empirically or
any of the senses experience it. Uh, it's very easy
to poopoo. And you give a great example here, um
with Lawrence and Einstein, and kind of which one would
win out. So both of these guys, both physicists, UM,
Einstein obviously more popular. We we'll see for a very
(21:22):
important reason. They both had the conclusion mathematically that with
the space time continuum, the closer we get to moving
at the speed of light, the more we slow down,
which is hard to wrap your head around. So Lawrence
comes out and says, explains it away because of changes
that take place in the ether, which he might as
well have said, a bit of magic happens. Uh, Einstein didn't.
(21:46):
And so the one we talked about today is Einstein
and not Lawrence. That explanation of Einstein was more rooted
in science, and he didn't say something wacky like the ether,
which is something empirically you can't see or smell or taste.
So Einstein, you know, he won that great battle. Yeah,
he very famously said, he goes, I don't know what's what,
(22:08):
but I know it ain't got nothing to do with
no ether. And one day my brain's gonna end up
in a jar and some guy's garage in New Jersey, right,
and everybody will love that picture of me with my
tongue sticking out, and Walter math that will play me
in a romantic comedy. So Lawrence violated that principle of plurality, right,
(22:30):
it added something to this that required an additional basically
like a leap of faith. There was no empirical evidence
that there was such a thing as the ether. And
he said, did I say ether? And I didn't mean ether?
And every went no, no, no, it's too lady. And
he's still I mean, he's a respected he's a respected physicist. Still,
it's not like he was some crackpot or anything like that,
(22:51):
because if you put his equations in Einstein's equations side
by side, they came to the same conclusions. It was
just explaining how Lawrence seems to have misstepped, right, But
he was obviously at least as brilliant as Einstein. When
it comes to that, he's just a little nuts apparently. So,
so he violates the principle of plurality. And now we
(23:12):
understand relativity rather than Lawrence's manic ravings. Yeah, and I
don't believe we mentioned there's a word for that. If
you can't prove it empirically, it doesn't exist. It's called positivism. Yes,
positivism isn't about having a good attitude, right, and so
this is and this also happened during Einstein's working days too.
There was a guy named Ernest Mock, and Ernest Mock
(23:34):
was so Ernest Mock, thank you. That's that's way better
than Ernest Ernst Mock. Um. He was so nuts on empiricism.
He was. It was an early I think he was
a physicist, if not a mathematician, one of the two.
And he he basically said, like, molecules don't exist. All
(23:56):
this whole bubble over molecules and atoms and all this stuff,
you're all crazy. We can't see him. They don't exist.
So there's a there's this kind of ironic twist that
came from Einstein's working career where he actually um he
beat Lorenz, his rival to this theory, through this through
Ockham's razor. But he also disproved this idea of um
(24:21):
that Earnst Mock, this thing about only believing what you
can sense with your your senses, this kind of other
part of Ockham's Razor, and a subsequent paper that came
a few years later that showed that molecules do exist.
So the idea that that ocams razor can be used
both ways is something that just keeps coming up again
(24:42):
and again and again, and we'll we'll talk about how
after a break. How about that? Okay, Chuck, So who
(25:13):
who uses occams raiser? Obviously? Um, everyone who was throwing
money down on the cock fight between Laurence and Einstein,
we're using atoms razor. They all went with Einstein's because
this is the simplest, right, Yeah, who else uses it? Well?
I mean you have a great section in this article
about skeptics. Uh, and I know over the years of
(25:34):
this show, over the past ten years, we've had a
lot of um minor scraps with the skeptic community. That's
a pretty minor is that fair to say? Yeah, because
I mean we have our skeptical side for sure. But
there you know, when it comes to skepticism and skeptics,
there's ah, it's it's sort of on a on a
sliding scale. There's a range of how you might feel
(25:55):
about certain things, and you very astutely, i think, point
out that if you are a true skeptic, then you
will not use Akam'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
that's there's a big difference there. There is so like
(26:17):
like that whole idea of seeing a ghost on film, right,
So there there's there's this example where somebody could say, Um,
so you just explain something about light and refracting and
something with the film, and um, there was moisture in
the air. What isn't it just simpler to say no,
(26:37):
that was a ghost exactly. And in that case, UM,
if you're a skeptic, you would you would Um, you're
you pull a little tough of your hair out, maybe um,
just start scraping at your cheeks until you bleed. Uh. Ideally,
what you would say is, um, I get what you're saying,
but you're bringing something into this that we don't know exists,
(26:59):
like we do no light exists. We do know it
refracts off of vapor. We do know how this can
be captured on film. So yes, that sounds very complicated. Um,
but the 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 ghost could consumably exists.
(27:20):
The fact that I just showed that this is reflect
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. Right.
That's a true skeptic, right, because because things happen, and
they and later on the more fantastical explanation could be
(27:44):
true and has been true. Uh. And you point out
very uh, 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,
(28:06):
the ghost explanation is clearly the simplest because I can
just say one word ghost, see there, uh, and then
you can fire right back. Well, no, I can fire
back two words um, photographic mishap, right, or maybe just
mishap if they want to, like keep it completely equal.
And that's the most simple. So it's completely subjective as
(28:28):
to which one or anything that it's the most simple
right exactly, And then again the the idea that you
can use acoms razor to disprove something just by showing
that that it's not the simplest explanation. That doesn't that's
not correct, that's not right, And so scientists will use
acoms razor and all sorts of different disciplines um like
(28:50):
for example, if you're making an artificial neural network, right
like a learning machine, you um, you might use decision trees,
and you will use some sort of simple decision tree
over a more complicated one that can get the same
job done. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right one,
but they're there are demonstrably good reasons for picking a
(29:11):
simpler one over. It's less likely to break, it takes
less time, it takes less energy to come to the computations.
There are things that are valuable about it, but it
doesn't mean that the other one is just wrong. And again,
when you're using akams razors, say, if you're making a
neural network, or you're pouring through a data set or
(29:31):
something like that, or you're trying to interpret a big
data set, you're you're making again like you're saying, not
just a subjective judgment about what's simpler. But that's all
there is to it. You're making a subjective judgment about
what's simpler, not what's right. It's not saying what's right.
And this is a recurring theme that you just have
(29:53):
to know because there's so many people out there that
use acams razor to disprove other people wells ideas, and
that's just not at all what it was originally intended for.
It's just a complete perversion of it, and it's just
wrong and that's not how science works. So if you
see somebody out there doing this, um, thump them in
the forehead. Yeah. And boy, then when you get into theology,
(30:16):
it gets really interesting because this is sort of a
prime example of the simplest explanation from a believer's point
of view, is very easy to say, No, the Big
Bang is incredibly complex and complicated, and it's pretty clear
that the easiest explanation here and the simplest thing is
(30:38):
God created life in seven days, right, But that's also
discounting the process that it took God to create earth,
if that's what you believe, and just kind of bundle
it up in a tidy package, say God created life.
The Big Bang is super complicated, so and very coincidental.
Um if you really look at it. So this is
(30:58):
the simplest x nation. Akams razor proves that God exists. Right,
and so that's been used time and time again by
by creationists, right, or people who believe in ghosts, or
people who um counter empiricism in a lot of voice. Right. Um.
But on the other hand, you can you can find
atheists who use akams razor to show that God does
(31:21):
not exist, because their point is if the universe tends
towards simplicity and God is perfect and simplicity is perfection,
then if God exists in the universe would be a
lot more simpler. There wouldn't be this big Bang thing
that we have that happened it would you You would
be right creationists, and the fact that you're wrong means
that means that there is no God, which is just like,
(31:44):
my head is starting to spin a little bit with this,
but it's a good example of how you can use
acams razor. Both sides can use acams razor to disprove
the other person's point, which against shows how it's not
meant to be used that way. Well, yeah, and then
you point out to and talk about a heads inner
like something like photosynthesis is a pretty complex mechanism and nature. Um,
(32:07):
but I mean, who's to say that that isn't the
simplest way to achieve food production and a plant maybe
that is the simplest. Yeah, we have no way of
knowing that there is a simpler model of the universe
or photosynthesis or of a shark or anything like that,
and that even something that does seem superfluous, we can't
say that in the larger scheme of things that it's
(32:30):
actually the simplest way to do that, right, So, like
like a shark seems like men, maybe do you need
that extra fin or something like that, or or does
a cow really need eight stomachs? Or do we really
need two kidneys? But what this what this point is saying,
is that there's we don't have the information to look
(32:50):
at everything on such a grand scheme of things to
say no, if they're if humans only had one kidney,
this other larger system would break down and this is
actually the simplest way to do it, right, Or there's
a cow with one stomach that we can compare it to, right, right, exactly,
So this whole thing. This is the point, Chuck, where
I reach this very glaring idea that Acams Razor or
(33:15):
what Aristotle said, that that that simplicity is is perfection.
That's all man made, that's human made. That's a human
made concept. To value simplicity is human made. It is
possible the universe complicated. You can come up with all
sorts of examples of the universe being seemingly pretty complicated.
(33:36):
Just the universe itself seems pretty complicated, frankly, right, So
that doesn't necessarily mean that the universe tends towards simplicity. Um,
it seems like humans value simplicity and the universe uses
simplicity a lot. But that doesn't mean that simplicity is
perfection or correctness. That's a human construct. Well yeah, but
(33:58):
and like let's say, in terms of engineering, it's probably
a decent model to think, Hey, the more complex the
system is that I'm engineering, the more things that are
to break. So we should probably try and make it
as simple as possible. That still gets the job done.
But that's not to say that it can be rudimentary,
like you might need it might need to be a
(34:19):
little bit complicated to run at its most efficient, you know, yeah, exactly,
or art. I mean, that's a whole different kind of worms.
You know, that's entirely subjective, like is uh. You might
find one drummer that says um less is more. You
just need to provide that basic backbeat and leave room. Uh,
(34:42):
And then you Stewart Copeland comes in the room and
and laughs and punches you in the face because you
look like sting thumps here in the head, you know.
So that's that's entirely subjective when it comes to art,
like you know, you've been to a museum and seen
a a twelve inch by twelve inch square painted red,
and then you've also seen Jackson Pollock or Free to Carlo.
(35:07):
So again, it's just a subjective as to simplicity and
maybe I don't know, can you apply to art? Am
I am I wrong? There? No, not necessarily. I think
that's a that's a good point because it's still it's
it's subjectively valuing something, whether it's complexity or whether it's simplicity.
It's it doesn't mean it's right. That's the point, right
(35:29):
that I think that your point is one staring right
over the other. Yeah, I think that's my point. And
then there's also plenty of circumstances where Akham's razor just
doesn't help very much, like very famously um Ptolemy's idea
of the um universe. The Earth is the center of
the universe. Geocentric universe, I think, is what it's called,
(35:51):
where the Earth is the center of the universe, the Sun,
the Moon, and 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 a universe, but
our solar system is Sun centered, and the Sun is
at the center and the Earth is actually moving around it. Um.
(36:14):
The thing is is, if you look at if you
look at the explanations between the two, they are pretty close,
and one is not necessarily less um simple than the other.
And if you put them side by side ockhams Razer,
it doesn't really help. You have to dig a little
(36:35):
deeper and figure it out that I actually know 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 is complex doesn't mean that it's wrong. So the
next time somebody starts flailing some acams razor stuff at you,
(36:56):
you tell them I'm gonna thump you. Do you want
to be thumbed? Everybody me? Yeah, Well, because they're asking
for it. Is it just a pretty mild act of violence? Yeah,
you don't want to be too. You don't want to
punch someone in the base. No. No, And plus I
mean like you shouldn't. You shouldn't thump anybody anyway. I
(37:18):
was totally kidding it. Okay, thanks for setting me up
for that. One oh one other thing. A lot of
people say that um OCAM's razor squashes free thought, So
I think that does kind of tie in with your
art thing, you know what I mean? Like, feel free
to go be complex. There's nothing wrong with it, doesn't
like not everything has to be funneled through this Ockham's
(37:38):
razor thing and made simpler just to make it better. Well, Chuck,
we made it through this one sort of. It's better
than Jackhammers will tell you that I think you did well.
I think you did as well. Man. That means that
it was a good episode. If you want to learn
more about Okam's Razor. You could read my UM socio
(37:59):
article on the site how Stuff Works dot com just
typing in the search bar. And since I said so,
so it's time for listener mail. All right, I'm gonna
call this North Korea Part two. We heard from a woman.
Uh and in Australia we were corrected. Just starts with
the nest there's no awe right. Woman in Australia named
Clear Sutherland too actually had an interaction and away with
(38:23):
North Korea when she was editor at Australian newspaper called
uh little M big X. It's m X, but it's
just X. Oh is it? No? I don't know. They
don't say awe before Australia, so oh, I got you.
Probably not the little land. Well, she's based in Elbourne,
(38:46):
UM and they have additions in Melbourne, Sydney, in Brisbane.
And she says during the London Olympics in our daily
Metal tally graphic we listed North in South Korea as
a naughty Korea and nice Korea. Uh. Just kind of
a chekey thing, I guess, she said. We've been doing
this for about a week when we received a call
from a Wall Street Journal reporter based in Soul seeking
(39:06):
comment about the fact that North Korea just issued an
official condemnation of our paper and its editor. At first,
our assumption was we were being punked, but he directed
us to the official PR website of North Korea. Sure enough,
there was a flowery diet tribe and communist English which
misnamed their paper Metro by the Way, and called us sortid,
(39:30):
bullying and petty thieves, declaring we would be cursed long
and Olympic history. I think my favorite extract is this,
She says. Editors of the paper were so incompetent as
to charnish the reputation of the paper by themselves by
producing the article like that. There is a saying a
straw may show which way the wind blows, a single
(39:52):
article may exhibit the level of the paper. Wow came
down on her, she says. The Wall Street Journal described
the official statement is most unusual, and we ended up
making some minor international headlines because of it. We ran
the statement in full with a story about our sudden
entry into world affairs on the front page. The headline
(40:13):
was North Korea fires missive. At the time, we thought
it was equal parts ridiculous and funny. It happened today
I'd probably try and arrange new identities for me and
my staff. Anyway, Thanks from me and my dog for
the show. Looking forward to seeing in Melbourne. That is
from Claire Sutherland. Thanks Claire, that was a great story.
(40:35):
Well you really want this one over, don't you sure?
If you want to get in touch with me and
Chuck with a great story, you can tweet to us.
I'm at Josh, I'm Clark, Chuck's that movie Crush. We're
both at s Y s K podcast. Chuck's on Facebook
dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we're at
Facebook dot com slash stuff. You should know. You can
send us an email to Stuff Podcast, how stuff Works
(40:56):
dot com and is always joining us at at home
on the web. Stuff you no dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff Works dot com? M hm hm
Hey, everybody, tour announcement, it's just me. Chuck. Josh isn't
here for this one. We had to get it out
the door. So apologies for fifty of stuff you should know.
But we have added two dates to uh the two
thousand eighteen tour, and there may be another couple to come.
You never know. But everybody, we asked Salt Lake City
ins and Utahn's should we come there, and boy, we
(00:24):
heard from you, so we're coming. It's that easy. Tuesday October,
we are coming to Salt Lake City for an evening
with stuff you should know at the Grand Theater and
we are super excited. I'll tell you what. You guys
really came through on the emails and social meds and
let us know that we would see some love if
we came to Salt Lake City, a city we've talked
(00:46):
about often in the past. So we are a coming Tuesday,
October twenty three, and we decided, hey, we're gonna be
out there, we might as well add another city that
we've never been to. So it is your lucky day,
Phoenix eras Zona and dare I say, Tucson and in
the Greater Phoenix area drive over to Phoenix and come
see us on Wednesday October at the Van Buren. And
(01:11):
this is also an evening with stuff you should know.
I don't even know what that means, but it sounds
a little more regal than normal. So come see us
October Salt Lake City and Phoenix. Uh, you know what,
I don't even know if tickets are on sale. I
believe by the time this announcement goes up, tickets will
be on sale, and you can go to the Van
Buren website or to the Grand Theater website to get
(01:34):
your ticket links. I will try and have them up
very soon on s y s K live dot com,
but I don't know if I'll get to that today,
but look forward soon and we can't wait to see you, guys.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(01:59):
and there's Charles Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer Tristan
over there, so it's stuff you should know. I don't
know how these are going to release, but as you've noticed,
Tristan weirdly grew out his mustache in the last hour. Again,
he's quick, He's very fast. He can make it go
in and out, in and out. Woooo what is that?
(02:21):
It's like he's growing his mustache and it's sucking it
back in, sucking it back in, you know, like a
reverse Plato. Right. Do you remember that Plato set with
the like a little meat grinder. No, there was one
where like you could grow a mustache on I dude,
I think I remember that. I would imagine if you
could reverse it too. It was called the Plato Nightmare set. Yeah,
(02:48):
is that your nightmare? Growing Plato mustache? Waking up like that? Yeah,
I've had that dream about once a week for about
thirty five years. Like all the rest of you is chuck,
but just your mustaches Wallace and alm it. Yeah, dude. Yesterday,
I h there was a bad smell. Emily and I
(03:08):
were having a glass of wine at a wine bar
and there was a bad smell nearby. I think it
was a dumpster or something. And they were growing fresh
herbs at this wine bar, and I rubbed a rosemary
bush and then swiped it all over my mustache. Uh In.
Emily's mind was blown. She was just like, oh my God,
(03:30):
like I can't believe, like that's an actual use for
facial hair. Yeah, I guess just to hold in that smell.
It was like, well, you can wipe it on your
upper lip. It's probably the same thing. Maybe the hair
retains more essential oils. Which essential oils? Man, people are
clamoring for that episode. Yeah, we should do that. We
(03:51):
will eventually. It's been a big part of my life
for two or twelve years now, essential oils. We'll talk
about it someday, but not today. No, no, because Chuck's
gonna stumble through a philosophy podcast. It's a yeah, I
guess it is philosophy. It's the philosophy of knowledge. Epistemology
is another way to put it. But specifically, Chuck, we're
(04:12):
talking today about a little ditty you may have heard
of before called acams razor, called the Gambler. Have you
have you ever you've heard of ocums razor before? Right, Well,
so much so that I thought for sure we had
covered this, But um, I realized that we just talked
about it quite a bit in the scientific methods. I'm
(04:33):
not at all surprised because a lot of people say
that the basis of science, which is how humans approach
um nature in our universe and us and everything. Scientifically,
the basis of that is ocams razor and if if
acams razor sounds familiar but you can't quite place it,
You've probably heard it as something like um, given two
(04:57):
possible outcomes or explanations or whatever, the simplest version is
probably the right one. Yeah, it's a pretty even that,
in its simplicity is is beautiful. The mere statement itself
is an example of its simplicity and how wonderful it
can be just to think, like, yeah, you know what,
(05:18):
let's get through all the gobbledegook. I think the easiest
way to explain this, whether it's a a what do
you call the orb and a photo Yeah, it's not.
It's not your great grandfather coming to visit you on
a different plane. It's really just an error with your photograph.
(05:40):
Or it's a it's the flash um yeah, reflecting off
like water vapor in the air. Or Kennedy probably acted alone.
Kennedy he shot himself from afar. Yeah. I clearly meant
to say Oswald acted alone, because that is a plus explanation,
(06:01):
not this very convoluted deep um plot that goes that
a hundred people were involved in to assassinate Kennedy. So
we'll talk about all that, because what you're doing right
now is has become pretty standard. You're using ocams razor
to disprove other people's points. There's this is a total
(06:25):
and complete misuse of ocams razors, not the original intention.
The original intention had nothing to do with saying that's wrong.
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 if you're doing something,
(06:49):
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 will talk about in a second. But
one is called he sounds like a baseball manager. But
one is called the principle of plurality harder to say
(07:11):
fast than you would think, and that is translated from
the Latin plurality should not be positive without necessity. And
the other is the principle of parsimony, which is it
is pointless to do with more what is done with less.
From what I understand, they are one and the same
Oh really, I could not find anyone who could explain
(07:33):
the difference. And I see them interchangeably, not just like
on some dudes blog, but unlike you know, the the
the Internet Encyclopedia Philosophy or the Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy, like
they don't seem to be different. Well, parsimony, it seems
different to me because that specifically is like not using resources,
(07:56):
not spending money if you don't have to. And that's
SEMs different than plurality. Okay, well then then let's explore it.
So plurality adding to something, doubling something, maybe just making
it more than just the singular. He's saying plurality should
not be positive without necessity, right, so I guess what
he's saying. Then if they are different, then if you're
(08:19):
if you're guessing at something, if you're trying to explain something,
don't make it harder than it is, don't make it
bigger than is absolutely necessary to explain its sense. Or
and this is a really big point that we'll see
in a minute. William of Ockham really was saying, don't
don't add on to something beyond what you know to
(08:41):
be true and correct, which a lot of people over time.
And I think he actually maybe explicitly wasn't empirersist have
said William of Ockham wasn't empirersist. He was saying that
that you need to experience things through your senses to
know that they are true. Yes, empirical evidence if I
can look at it or smell it, or taste it
(09:03):
or feel it. What's the fifth one? Uh, tickle it,
tickle it. And then the sixth one, of course we
know means Bruce Willis is really dead. See the ghost
of it. Uh. Yeah, if there's no empirical evidence, if
you cannot experience it with one of your senses, then um,
it's it's poo pooed. So so it is so. And
(09:24):
those two things, like you really especially modern science, especially
science these days, you put them together. It's given two things.
Go with the simpler explanation, and you don't don't believe
anything that you can't sense one way or another through
your senses empirically. Right, you put those together, you have
the basis for modern science. And so the idea that
(09:46):
that that things that are simpler are better, or the
idea that the universe is simpler, Like when you start
to think about it. It's all over the place, right,
Like the the idea that the you universe is based
on simpler being better is found everywhere, right, So, like
there's things that things have fewer parts, things that require
(10:11):
less energy, the encapsulation of larger ideas into smaller amounts
of words or theories or whatever. All these things are
very much prized by humanity. So it just kind of
makes sense that acams razor is a sensible thing and
that you could actually use it to uncover the mysteries
of the universe. But again, that's not really necessarily the case,
(10:33):
to tell you the truth. No, I mean, there's there's
gonna be a lot of uh and and this stuff
is kind of fun, just a lot of back and
forth on Acam's razor throughout this whole thing, because there
is no idea and that's kind of part of the
whole jam of Bockham's razor, because there is no right
or wrong here. You know, what's weird is right? A
lot of people point to it though that it's this
(10:55):
is right. I just proved you wrong, razor and that's
just not true. And all right, should we take a
break early? Okay? Yeah, I think we should take a
break now because I need to get my head wrapped
around this, and we'll come back getting the way back
machine and visit Billy Ackum. Okay, so now Billy Ackum
(11:35):
sounds like a recording star. Oh sure, like Billy Ocean. Yeah,
get also my razor and get into my car, so
that we should say the razor too. It's a philosophical term.
It's the term of philosophy. The razor used to scrape
away unnecessary stuff. So it's Acom's razor. So let's go
(11:59):
back and me Billy Yakum shown. Yeah. And you wrote
this by the way back in your in your article
righting days uh, And you point out very astutely that
this is from a time in our history of the
world where you might not have had a surname. You
(12:19):
may have been William of Ockham, which is the case here,
which is in England. And he lived between about twelve
eighty five and thirty nine, and he was a philosophical
dude and a Franciscan monk. And he very much like
you point out, took his valid poverty very seriously and
lived a very meager, humble life. Yeah he did. He
(12:45):
also expected the church to take the same vow of party,
and he actually butted heads with the Church quite a bit,
so much so that he ended up getting excommunicated, as
we'll see. But he um, he was the real deal
as far as like a true believer went. The weird
thing about William of Akam was that he was also
a genuinely independent thinker and a rationalist, which at the
(13:10):
time rationalism and the church did not go hand in hand.
They were there was really not much rationalism. So for
an idea of the idea for this this upstart Franciscan
monk to start questioning the ideas of the church. And
not only that, but how the the leaders of the
church conducted themselves and how much money they surrounded themselves
(13:32):
with and how much power they had politically. This is
it was a big deal, all right. Yeah. And he
is not He did not invent this line of thought, um,
as much as he's probably attributed to this to people
that uh just know him from like a jeopardy board.
He h. This is already a line of thought well
established by this time in the medieval times, and he
(13:54):
was just he kind of boiled it down to those
two sentences that you were talking about. So in one
could understand it, he could put it on a bumper
sticker and a T shirt and sell it. Right. So
it was Aristotle who was the guy who came up
with this idea first, that that simplicity equals perfection, and
perfection equal simplicity, said, the more perfect a nature is,
(14:16):
the fewer means it requires for its operation. Right, So
that makes sense. That speak to me. But then over time,
in between Aristotle and William it kind of got expanded.
So let me give you an example of that same
thought from Robert gross Test who was an early scientist
also a theologian I believe too. Here was his his
(14:36):
version of it, That is better and more valuable, which
requires fewer other circumstances being equal, For if one thing
we're demonstrated from many and another thing from fewer equally
known premises, clearly that is better, which is from fewer
because it makes us no quickly, just as a universal
demonstration is better than particular because it produces knowledge from
(14:58):
fewer premises. Is that similarly in natural science, in moral science,
and in metaphysics, the best is that which needs no premises,
and that better that which needs the fewer other circumstances
being equal. Boy, the ironies there are rich, right. So
within less than a hundred years, William of Ockham comes
(15:19):
along and he's just like, plurality should not be positive
without necessity Robert, and Robert was like, well, yeah, I
guess that's one way you could say it. So so
I want to say something though, Um, before we keep going,
Chuck actually found a correction of my own article that
I missed before. What's that? It turns out that they
(15:39):
think now that a another um theologian slash scientist from
uh William of Ockham's era named John Dunn Scottis was
the one who really encapsulated this this principle of plurality
and principle of parsimony, and that it was a guy
from the nineteenth century, William Rowan Hamilton's Irish mathematician, that
(16:01):
he was the one who misattributed it to William a. Ackam.
So is William Avakam just a uh and no nothing, no, no,
His writings definitely included this stuff and he never took
credit for this. But they think that that it was
actually um John's done scott Is who encamped who encapsulated
(16:21):
it the way that we tend to think of it
now bumper stickers, but right, But William of Akam thought
this way and he was a radical thinker and a rationalist,
as we'll see. 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 the what is that
(16:43):
twenty two? Um? He they kind of squared off on this,
and of course the pope wins all battles, at least
back then. Uh. And he was excommunicated and several of
his his monk brothers, and I take that to mean
not real. There's right, we're excommunicated. In thirty eight he
(17:04):
went to Munich seeking refuge. He was protected there by
Emperor Louis the fourth, and uh, Ultimately he went out
because he started writing papers about Pope John the twenty
two saying he's a heretic, and people ultimately believed him. Right.
He he definitely made some pretty convincing points. And he
(17:26):
also again like if you're saying I took avour 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 outside as well. So there there's some
reasons why William of Bakum is this theologian, a devout
Franciscan monk, is looked upon as one of the fathers
(17:46):
of western um science like the foundation of Western science right,
or science in general um. And the reason why is
he argued against the prevailing ideas at the time, which
is called medieval synthesis. And this is very much championed
by Thomas Aquinas, who's a famous theologian. I believe he
was a saint, and one of the reasons he was
(18:08):
canonized was because of this. Thinking about this, but the
whole medieval synthesis thing was that God was first and
foremost everything. Right, you were, you were a member of
the church, just as much as you were a member
of your country, a citizen of your country. Um. All
human knowledge came from God, and Thomas Aquinas he was
(18:31):
it wasn't just like the end. Thomas Aquinas used philosophy
to prove that sentiment that all human knowledge came from God,
and here is how. And basically it took the idea
of cause and effect and said that you can trace
every effect back to a cause, back to another effect
back to another cause. But ultimately you were going to
end up on God, and that all of our conceptions
(18:52):
of everything arose from God's conception, and that God will
that we understand things this way, which means that this
is the perfect way to understand it, which means it's
right right. So that is not what William Wacam thought.
He was again a rationalist who said, um, no, we
tend to think things or things because that is that
(19:13):
arises in the human mind from cognition, not from God.
And this dude was not a heretic. He believed that
you didn't apply rationalism to God, that God required faith,
and rationalism stood on its own, it was a different thing,
and you couldn't know God through your senses. God was elsewhere.
(19:33):
Leave God out of this. And the fact that he
was able to really successfully lay like a philosophical groundwork
for this, a rational groundwork for it. It's one thing
today to be like I'm a secular humanist. You know,
I'm rational. Forget the church that's today. This is at
a time when this guy is saying this and the
(19:53):
Church has the power to burn you at the stake.
Like he was. He was a stand up rational thing, right,
which kind of makes him a hero of rationality today.
But don't. And this is another perfect example of how
Akam's razor gets confused. Akam himself gets confused too. He's
a hero of science. But it was also one of
the more devout human beings walking the earth at the time.
(20:16):
It was a monk for basically his whole life, and
also had a metal band called Medieval Synthesis. Oh that
is a good name, isn't it. So he was he
was just a conundrum. Yeah, he was a conundrum for sure.
And again he got excommunicated. He had to escape by horse,
stolen horse. I mean, he was not very monk like. No,
But all right, So we were talking earlier about empirical evidence,
(20:39):
um and how that kind of fits in here, and
the fact that if you can't you know, like you
you know the sky is blue because you look up
and you see it's blue. You you know a bird
makes a whistle because you can hear the bird make
a whistle. So uh, it's very easy to sort of
use that um and say sure, but if you don't,
(21:02):
if you can't see it or hear it empirically or
any of the senses experience it. Uh, it's very easy
to poopoo. And you give a great example here, um
with Lawrence and Einstein, and kind of which one would
win out. So both of these guys, both physicists, UM,
Einstein obviously more popular. We we'll see for a very
(21:22):
important reason. They both had the conclusion mathematically that with
the space time continuum, the closer we get to moving
at the speed of light, the more we slow down,
which is hard to wrap your head around. So Lawrence
comes out and says, explains it away because of changes
that take place in the ether, which he might as
well have said, a bit of magic happens. Uh, Einstein didn't.
(21:46):
And so the one we talked about today is Einstein
and not Lawrence. That explanation of Einstein was more rooted
in science, and he didn't say something wacky like the ether,
which is something empirically you can't see or smell or taste.
So Einstein, you know, he won that great battle. Yeah,
he very famously said, he goes, I don't know what's what,
(22:08):
but I know it ain't got nothing to do with
no ether. And one day my brain's gonna end up
in a jar and some guy's garage in New Jersey, right,
and everybody will love that picture of me with my
tongue sticking out, and Walter math that will play me
in a romantic comedy. So Lawrence violated that principle of plurality, right,
(22:30):
it added something to this that required an additional basically
like a leap of faith. There was no empirical evidence
that there was such a thing as the ether. And
he said, did I say ether? And I didn't mean ether?
And every went no, no, no, it's too lady. And
he's still I mean, he's a respected he's a respected physicist. Still,
it's not like he was some crackpot or anything like that,
(22:51):
because if you put his equations in Einstein's equations side
by side, they came to the same conclusions. It was
just explaining how Lawrence seems to have misstepped, right, But
he was obviously at least as brilliant as Einstein. When
it comes to that, he's just a little nuts apparently. So,
so he violates the principle of plurality. And now we
(23:12):
understand relativity rather than Lawrence's manic ravings. Yeah, and I
don't believe we mentioned there's a word for that. If
you can't prove it empirically, it doesn't exist. It's called positivism. Yes,
positivism isn't about having a good attitude, right, and so
this is and this also happened during Einstein's working days too.
There was a guy named Ernest Mock, and Ernest Mock
(23:34):
was so Ernest Mock, thank you. That's that's way better
than Ernest Ernst Mock. Um. He was so nuts on empiricism.
He was. It was an early I think he was
a physicist, if not a mathematician, one of the two.
And he he basically said, like, molecules don't exist. All
(23:56):
this whole bubble over molecules and atoms and all this stuff,
you're all crazy. We can't see him. They don't exist.
So there's a there's this kind of ironic twist that
came from Einstein's working career where he actually um he
beat Lorenz, his rival to this theory, through this through
Ockham's razor. But he also disproved this idea of um
(24:21):
that Earnst Mock, this thing about only believing what you
can sense with your your senses, this kind of other
part of Ockham's Razor, and a subsequent paper that came
a few years later that showed that molecules do exist.
So the idea that that ocams razor can be used
both ways is something that just keeps coming up again
(24:42):
and again and again, and we'll we'll talk about how
after a break. How about that? Okay, Chuck, So who
(25:13):
who uses occams raiser? Obviously? Um, everyone who was throwing
money down on the cock fight between Laurence and Einstein,
we're using atoms razor. They all went with Einstein's because
this is the simplest, right, Yeah, who else uses it? Well?
I mean you have a great section in this article
about skeptics. Uh, and I know over the years of
(25:34):
this show, over the past ten years, we've had a
lot of um minor scraps with the skeptic community. That's
a pretty minor is that fair to say? Yeah, because
I mean we have our skeptical side for sure. But
there you know, when it comes to skepticism and skeptics,
there's ah, it's it's sort of on a on a
sliding scale. There's a range of how you might feel
(25:55):
about certain things, and you very astutely, i think, point
out that if you are a true skeptic, then you
will not use Akam'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
that's there's a big difference there. There is so like
(26:17):
like that whole idea of seeing a ghost on film, right,
So there there's there's this example where somebody could say, Um,
so you just explain something about light and refracting and
something with the film, and um, there was moisture in
the air. What isn't it just simpler to say no,
(26:37):
that was a ghost exactly. And in that case, UM,
if you're a skeptic, you would you would Um, you're
you pull a little tough of your hair out, maybe um,
just start scraping at your cheeks until you bleed. Uh. Ideally,
what you would say is, um, I get what you're saying,
but you're bringing something into this that we don't know exists,
(26:59):
like we do no light exists. We do know it
refracts off of vapor. We do know how this can
be captured on film. So yes, that sounds very complicated. Um,
but the 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 ghost could consumably exists.
(27:20):
The fact that I just showed that this is reflect
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. Right.
That's a true skeptic, right, because because things happen, and
they and later on the more fantastical explanation could be
(27:44):
true and has been true. Uh. And you point out
very uh, 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,
(28:06):
the ghost explanation is clearly the simplest because I can
just say one word ghost, see there, uh, and then
you can fire right back. Well, no, I can fire
back two words um, photographic mishap, right, or maybe just
mishap if they want to, like keep it completely equal.
And that's the most simple. So it's completely subjective as
(28:28):
to which one or anything that it's the most simple
right exactly, And then again the the idea that you
can use acoms razor to disprove something just by showing
that that it's not the simplest explanation. That doesn't that's
not correct, that's not right, And so scientists will use
acoms razor and all sorts of different disciplines um like
(28:50):
for example, if you're making an artificial neural network, right
like a learning machine, you um, you might use decision trees,
and you will use some sort of simple decision tree
over a more complicated one that can get the same
job done. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right one,
but they're there are demonstrably good reasons for picking a
(29:11):
simpler one over. It's less likely to break, it takes
less time, it takes less energy to come to the computations.
There are things that are valuable about it, but it
doesn't mean that the other one is just wrong. And again,
when you're using akams razors, say, if you're making a
neural network, or you're pouring through a data set or
(29:31):
something like that, or you're trying to interpret a big
data set, you're you're making again like you're saying, not
just a subjective judgment about what's simpler. But that's all
there is to it. You're making a subjective judgment about
what's simpler, not what's right. It's not saying what's right.
And this is a recurring theme that you just have
(29:53):
to know because there's so many people out there that
use acams razor to disprove other people wells ideas, and
that's just not at all what it was originally intended for.
It's just a complete perversion of it, and it's just
wrong and that's not how science works. So if you
see somebody out there doing this, um, thump them in
the forehead. Yeah. And boy, then when you get into theology,
(30:16):
it gets really interesting because this is sort of a
prime example of the simplest explanation from a believer's point
of view, is very easy to say, No, the Big
Bang is incredibly complex and complicated, and it's pretty clear
that the easiest explanation here and the simplest thing is
(30:38):
God created life in seven days, right, But that's also
discounting the process that it took God to create earth,
if that's what you believe, and just kind of bundle
it up in a tidy package, say God created life.
The Big Bang is super complicated, so and very coincidental.
Um if you really look at it. So this is
(30:58):
the simplest x nation. Akams razor proves that God exists. Right,
and so that's been used time and time again by
by creationists, right, or people who believe in ghosts, or
people who um counter empiricism in a lot of voice. Right. Um.
But on the other hand, you can you can find
atheists who use akams razor to show that God does
(31:21):
not exist, because their point is if the universe tends
towards simplicity and God is perfect and simplicity is perfection,
then if God exists in the universe would be a
lot more simpler. There wouldn't be this big Bang thing
that we have that happened it would you You would
be right creationists, and the fact that you're wrong means
that means that there is no God, which is just like,
(31:44):
my head is starting to spin a little bit with this,
but it's a good example of how you can use
acams razor. Both sides can use acams razor to disprove
the other person's point, which against shows how it's not
meant to be used that way. Well, yeah, and then
you point out to and talk about a heads inner
like something like photosynthesis is a pretty complex mechanism and nature. Um,
(32:07):
but I mean, who's to say that that isn't the
simplest way to achieve food production and a plant maybe
that is the simplest. Yeah, we have no way of
knowing that there is a simpler model of the universe
or photosynthesis or of a shark or anything like that,
and that even something that does seem superfluous, we can't
say that in the larger scheme of things that it's
(32:30):
actually the simplest way to do that, right, So, like
like a shark seems like men, maybe do you need
that extra fin or something like that, or or does
a cow really need eight stomachs? Or do we really
need two kidneys? But what this what this point is saying,
is that there's we don't have the information to look
(32:50):
at everything on such a grand scheme of things to
say no, if they're if humans only had one kidney,
this other larger system would break down and this is
actually the simplest way to do it, right, Or there's
a cow with one stomach that we can compare it to, right, right, exactly,
So this whole thing. This is the point, Chuck, where
I reach this very glaring idea that Acams Razor or
(33:15):
what Aristotle said, that that that simplicity is is perfection.
That's all man made, that's human made. That's a human
made concept. To value simplicity is human made. It is
possible the universe complicated. You can come up with all
sorts of examples of the universe being seemingly pretty complicated.
(33:36):
Just the universe itself seems pretty complicated, frankly, right, So
that doesn't necessarily mean that the universe tends towards simplicity. Um,
it seems like humans value simplicity and the universe uses
simplicity a lot. But that doesn't mean that simplicity is
perfection or correctness. That's a human construct. Well yeah, but
(33:58):
and like let's say, in terms of engineering, it's probably
a decent model to think, Hey, the more complex the
system is that I'm engineering, the more things that are
to break. So we should probably try and make it
as simple as possible. That still gets the job done.
But that's not to say that it can be rudimentary,
like you might need it might need to be a
(34:19):
little bit complicated to run at its most efficient, you know, yeah, exactly,
or art. I mean, that's a whole different kind of worms.
You know, that's entirely subjective, like is uh. You might
find one drummer that says um less is more. You
just need to provide that basic backbeat and leave room. Uh,
(34:42):
And then you Stewart Copeland comes in the room and
and laughs and punches you in the face because you
look like sting thumps here in the head, you know.
So that's that's entirely subjective when it comes to art,
like you know, you've been to a museum and seen
a a twelve inch by twelve inch square painted red,
and then you've also seen Jackson Pollock or Free to Carlo.
(35:07):
So again, it's just a subjective as to simplicity and
maybe I don't know, can you apply to art? Am
I am I wrong? There? No, not necessarily. I think
that's a that's a good point because it's still it's
it's subjectively valuing something, whether it's complexity or whether it's simplicity.
It's it doesn't mean it's right. That's the point, right
(35:29):
that I think that your point is one staring right
over the other. Yeah, I think that's my point. And
then there's also plenty of circumstances where Akham's razor just
doesn't help very much, like very famously um Ptolemy's idea
of the um universe. The Earth is the center of
the universe. Geocentric universe, I think, is what it's called,
(35:51):
where the Earth is the center of the universe, the Sun,
the Moon, and 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 a universe, but
our solar system is Sun centered, and the Sun is
at the center and the Earth is actually moving around it. Um.
(36:14):
The thing is is, if you look at if you
look at the explanations between the two, they are pretty close,
and one is not necessarily less um simple than the other.
And if you put them side by side ockhams Razer,
it doesn't really help. You have to dig a little
(36:35):
deeper and figure it out that I actually know 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 is complex doesn't mean that it's wrong. So the
next time somebody starts flailing some acams razor stuff at you,
(36:56):
you tell them I'm gonna thump you. Do you want
to be thumbed? Everybody me? Yeah, Well, because they're asking
for it. Is it just a pretty mild act of violence? Yeah,
you don't want to be too. You don't want to
punch someone in the base. No. No, And plus I
mean like you shouldn't. You shouldn't thump anybody anyway. I
(37:18):
was totally kidding it. Okay, thanks for setting me up
for that. One oh one other thing. A lot of
people say that um OCAM's razor squashes free thought, So
I think that does kind of tie in with your
art thing, you know what I mean? Like, feel free
to go be complex. There's nothing wrong with it, doesn't
like not everything has to be funneled through this Ockham's
(37:38):
razor thing and made simpler just to make it better. Well, Chuck,
we made it through this one sort of. It's better
than Jackhammers will tell you that I think you did well.
I think you did as well. Man. That means that
it was a good episode. If you want to learn
more about Okam's Razor. You could read my UM socio
(37:59):
article on the site how Stuff Works dot com just
typing in the search bar. And since I said so,
so it's time for listener mail. All right, I'm gonna
call this North Korea Part two. We heard from a woman.
Uh and in Australia we were corrected. Just starts with
the nest there's no awe right. Woman in Australia named
Clear Sutherland too actually had an interaction and away with
(38:23):
North Korea when she was editor at Australian newspaper called
uh little M big X. It's m X, but it's
just X. Oh is it? No? I don't know. They
don't say awe before Australia, so oh, I got you.
Probably not the little land. Well, she's based in Elbourne,
(38:46):
UM and they have additions in Melbourne, Sydney, in Brisbane.
And she says during the London Olympics in our daily
Metal tally graphic we listed North in South Korea as
a naughty Korea and nice Korea. Uh. Just kind of
a chekey thing, I guess, she said. We've been doing
this for about a week when we received a call
from a Wall Street Journal reporter based in Soul seeking
(39:06):
comment about the fact that North Korea just issued an
official condemnation of our paper and its editor. At first,
our assumption was we were being punked, but he directed
us to the official PR website of North Korea. Sure enough,
there was a flowery diet tribe and communist English which
misnamed their paper Metro by the Way, and called us sortid,
(39:30):
bullying and petty thieves, declaring we would be cursed long
and Olympic history. I think my favorite extract is this,
She says. Editors of the paper were so incompetent as
to charnish the reputation of the paper by themselves by
producing the article like that. There is a saying a
straw may show which way the wind blows, a single
(39:52):
article may exhibit the level of the paper. Wow came
down on her, she says. The Wall Street Journal described
the official statement is most unusual, and we ended up
making some minor international headlines because of it. We ran
the statement in full with a story about our sudden
entry into world affairs on the front page. The headline
(40:13):
was North Korea fires missive. At the time, we thought
it was equal parts ridiculous and funny. It happened today
I'd probably try and arrange new identities for me and
my staff. Anyway, Thanks from me and my dog for
the show. Looking forward to seeing in Melbourne. That is
from Claire Sutherland. Thanks Claire, that was a great story.
(40:35):
Well you really want this one over, don't you sure?
If you want to get in touch with me and
Chuck with a great story, you can tweet to us.
I'm at Josh, I'm Clark, Chuck's that movie Crush. We're
both at s Y s K podcast. Chuck's on Facebook
dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we're at
Facebook dot com slash stuff. You should know. You can
send us an email to Stuff Podcast, how stuff Works
(40:56):
dot com and is always joining us at at home
on the web. Stuff you no dot com for more
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