1997 11 02
Occam's Razor: The Law of Sufficient ReasonAKA:
Law of Economy
Law of Parsimony
Survival depends on decision making. Where our decisions are based on knowledge, our chances are optimal. But there are far more circumstances in which our knowledge is fragmentary than there are circumstances in which our knowledge is complete and reliable. Decisions have to be made anyway and sometimes right away, even if the decision must be based on a guess. If you and your family are cowering in a cave and you suddenly smell tiger, hear a growl, feel hot feline breath on the back of your neck, you don't rebuild the fire for a better look; you scream "tiger" and try to flee.
A mother hears a crash in the pantry. She comes in from the yard and finds that a dinette chair has been drawn into the pantry, a cabinet door is open, and the cookie jar lies smashed on the linoleum. Junior is no where to be seen. The possibilities of what could have happened are far more numerous than a committee of sit-com writers could invent. Thus far, there's no way to prove that it didn't all come about by astronomically improbable, but not impossible, quantum randomness. But the mother doesn't bother her imagination. "Junior," she calls in her most scolding tone.
The simplest answer may be the best.
Spirit of Occam
Spirit of Occam
It's the bottom of the ninth, seventh game of the World Series, the catcher's attempt at a tag at the plate screens the umpire's view. The third base umpire has fallen trying to stay clear of the third baseman's fielding. "Safe," the umpire calls. It doesn't matter what the replays might show. The game would have few sponsors at five hours of mostly the backs of the umpires conferring over a replay monitor.
What do we do where knowledge is partial? (As it always is!) We make a decision. How about when knowledge is divided? (As it usually is.) How do we decide among contending ignorances? The 14th-century philosopher William of Occam (defender of nominalism) decided in favor of simplicity with the dictum, "entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity." Manhattan Project mathematical wizard Richard Feynman applied Occam's Razor when answering whether he believed in UFOs. When you don't know but have to decide, chose what seems to be the most reasonable candidate, he said. It's "more reasonable to believe that UFOs are the result of the known, irrational behavior of terrestrials than the unknown, rational behavior of extraterrestrials."
A Conspiracy of Paper
Seek simplicity and distrust it.
Whitehead
Epistemology
Bateson
Notes
Decision
I notice advice that Vice President Al Gore has on the subject: "Resistance to seeing the strategic threats often focuses on the lack of complete information and perfect understanding. We should acknowledge that we will never have complete information. Yet we have to make decisions anyway; we do this all the time. And one way we draw conclusions from incomplete information is be recognizing patterns."
Earth in the Balance, 1992
A better look
There's an ad on TV these days depicting a couple grateful for some motorist protection system they've bought into. They narrate getting a flat while traveling and finding the car surrounded by rattlesnakes. They hate snakes, the woman iterates. They pushed a button and within seconds OnStar had dispatched a tow truck.
I didn't hear them report their warning about the rattlesnakes to the dispatcher or to the towing service. I didn't hear any discussion of whether a herpetologist should accompany the truck to confirm the couple's identification before work proceeded. They cared about their safety and convenience: didn't they care about the safety of the workers? No: all we're supposed to understand is that they hate snakes, rattlesnakes can be dangerous; therefore, any snake they see is a rattlesnake. The ad didn't confirm that there was a single snake there of any species: how do we know they didn't see a bit of bicycle tube and decide it was a rattlesnake? A whole nest of rattlesnakes? No: you're fearful? You get your guard up.
How much time did the US spend falsifying fears of Germans, Japanese, Communists ...? No: we just went to war. Shoot first, ask questions later.
While here, I'll tell you: this decade, I've lived in rattlesnake country, very close to a variety of water moccasin habitats. I've spent those ten years looking for rattlesnakes. I've found one. What made that couple so lucky when they weren't even looking?
I haven't fished much since getting whole hog into this home page, but before I got the Mac and got on-line, I spent time on or in the water every day. In the warm months I'd likely be in the water, the weediest part, up to my neck, lobbing my fly to places lunkers might hide. Back at the ramp, every kid has just seen a moccasin. Funny: I was just out where they live: didn't see one.
On land, I'm looking for rattlesnakes. In the water, I'm certainly not looking for moccasins! And if I were, I'd be looking for them in the worst way, least likely of success. They hear, feel, smell me coming: they hunt or bask or whatever somewhere else. Snakes come up to me when I've got a string of bluegills tied to my bathing suit: but they're brown banded water snakes. So far, the moccasins don't want trouble.
Biking round Highlands Hammock provided my one view of a rattler. I'm pedaling, oh, maybe ten miles an hour. Ah, a snake. I pedal right up to it for a look-see. Whoops! The snake rears back, ready to strike. I see the black diamonds and hear the warning of the rattle close to the same time. I veer my naked calf out of its range, stop, oh, ten feet away, turn, and watch. The diamondback can't see me at all at that range. Slowly, he calms down and resumes advancing, cautiously, across the road. Once on the other side though: whoosh! into the undergrowth.
He didn't want a piece of me any more than I wanted a piece of him. And he ventured onto the asphalt the way a debutante who took the wrong subway would venture into Harlem: very cautiously, painfully cautiously.
A ranger/life guard at Manatee Springs State Park once offered to share a catch of crawdads with me. Sure, I said. It turned out he hadn't caught them yet. He lowered himself into the spring and began sifting through the hydrilla. Brown banded water snakes poured out, biting him on the way. "Oh, they don't hurt," he said as he put a handful of crawdads into a paper cup. He showed me his hands and wrists: looked like a junkie: dozens of little skin pricks all over both hands, the majority half-healed. No sweat to him? No sweat to me either.
Umpire's Call
Email exchange:
Did the umpire call an out because the runner was out, or was the runner out because the umpire said so?
The runner is out because the umpire says so. The truth isn't the judge.
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