In English the quote below can with some imagination be interpreted as: “when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is usually the best”. Almost anyone who’s interested in math and/or logic has heard of Ockham’s razor. It’s a principle named after William Ockham (c. 1285–1349) , a student and later teacher of Theology at Oxford University (He never became professor, but that’s a different story which has to do something with Oxford’s chancellor John Lutterell). Although he wasn’t a sceptic he was a great critic and applied the principle later known as Ockham’s razor frequently and ruthlessly. An interesting combination with his Theocentric world view.
Although it’s origins trace back much further, all the way back to Aristotle (384–322 BC). According to Wikipedia the first time the principle was described as Ockhams Razor was back in in 1852 in the works of Sir William Hamilton (1788–1856). It’s named after Ockham however because of the efficiency and frequency of use by him in his works.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate – William of Ockham
That’s a bit of background for you, now on the the goodness.
With a slight adaptation you could apply the Razor to anything in life although I don’t know if my teacher would agree with me on that one. (I know he’s a subscriber to my RSS so I’m sure I’ll get some feedback *grin* )
If we interpret things a little more casually we could say that “having two ways of doing something, the simpler is the better choice.” Okay, very casually… Minimalists are always searching for ways to make things simpler. The power of less indeed. Applying the Razor to what I just wrote we get “Simpler is better” or “Simplest is best”.
Having several ways of doing things is an often occurring event in every day life. We could brush our teeth with our dominant hand and our subordinate hand but we always choose the dominant hand. That is, unless you might be thinking of this blogpost when brushing your teeth and deciding to switch for once. This is a very clear example and of course not all examples are that clear to us. It’s exactly this reason why minimalism blogs seem to be flourishing on the Internet. We need others to tell us where we can simplify our lives, where we can apply that razor and cut away the uselessness.
Cutting away useless things actually is very liberating in life. It saves time, money, space, stress, frustration. All well known and documented theories on why minimalism is so attractive. In these times of abundance we’re looking for those things that really do matter in life and try to experience them to the fullest.
Do you have an experience in the liberation minimalism has brought you? Please do share it and inspire others to identify where they can make a cut with Ockham’s Razor.
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