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Simple Description of Occam's Razor
In Response To: Occam's Razor ()

I just skimmed the Wikipedia entry on "Occam's Razor", and like the following, as a simple explanation of the "razor" (used to cut away unnecessary assumptions, explanations, etc.): "Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simplest one is to be preferred."

Shaun: Thanks for bringing the razor to the forum. I believe that it will prove to be very useful!

Jeff

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

: You know I have always been a "believer" in these
: Autavias as they just look "right" in the metal. In
: contrast, when I first saw one of the crude dubious Monacos we
: have all debated it just looked "wrong". Of course we
: can't really trust these instincts, often things that look
: "wrong" are proved to be correct - I'm thinking of the
: IDF 1163 Autavia with white hands in Arno's book, to me, that
: just looks wrong, but I believe Arno's provenance and research
: much more than my instincts.

: So if I can't trust "rightness", what about using Occam's
: Razor? As I interpret it, this is the idea that if you have two
: competing theories, the simpler one with less assumptions is
: more likely to be true.
: Or in latin "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter
: necessitatem" (actually, I have no idea what that means,
: but Wikipedia says it is correct, so it must be).

: In the case of the numeric Autavias, there are two possibilities:
: 1) Heuer produced them, but they were never shown in any catalog
: (not the only Heuer version where this is true)
: 2) some faker made a production run of these weird Autavia dials.
: There are too many of them around to be hand made. Not only did
: he make up his own dial and not copy an existing dial (a bizarre
: choice for a professional faker), but he also decided to make
: them in both two register and three register versions (why would
: you do that?).

: (2) just sounds too convoluted to believe.

: And finally, as Toni says... they look cool.

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