RRC Archives

tbwilsonky wrote:"...never...never...always...always..."

it is soooo nice to see the hyper-complexity of geopolitics rendered absurdly simple in a single paragraph; especially in such stark and uncompromising terms.

"they see that our course is set and always will be."

teleology fail.

Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor[1]), often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae, translating to law of parsimony, law of economy or law of succinctness, is a principle that generally recommends selecting the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest new assumptions, when the hypotheses are equal in other respects.[2] For instance, they must both sufficiently explain available data in the first place.

The principle is often inaccurately summarized as "the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one". This summary is misleading, however, since the principle is actually focused on shifting the burden of proof in discussions.[3] That is, the razor is a principle that suggests we should tend towards simpler theories (see justifications section below) until we can trade some simplicity for increased explanatory power. Contrary to the popular summary, the simplest available theory is sometimes a less accurate explanation. Philosophers also add that the exact meaning of "simplest" can be nuanced in the first place.[4]

Occam's razor is attributed to the 14th-century English logician, theologian and Franciscan friar Father William of Ockham (d'Okham) although the principle was familiar long before.[5] The words attributed to Occam are "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem), although these actual words are not to be found in his extant works.[6] The saying is also phrased as pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate ("plurality should not be posited without necessity").[7] To quote Isaac Newton, "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes."[8]

In science, Occam’s razor is used as a heuristic (general guiding rule) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models rather than as an arbiter between published models.[9][10] In the scientific method, Occam's razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic, and certainly not a scientific result.[11][12][13][14]

In 2005 Marcus Hutter mathematically proved[15] that shorter computable theories have more weight when calculating the expected value of an action across all computable theories which perfectly describe previous observations.



I wish you were half as smart as you thought you were, maybe you'd be worth something other than a punch-line...

Amen. It should be clear to anyone willing to open their eyes that all the hysteria about Bush "shredding the constitution" was nothing more than partisan politics, a purely political strategy designed to wrest power from the Rs and transfer it to the Ds. Now that Obama is bombing a middle eastern country without congressional approval it's a sure bet that we won't see Biden taking action on his promise to impeach any president that would do such a thing. Anyone up for a bet on that?

How's it feel to be suckered, suckers?

Day, Look at the context. Cheney/Bush created a rationale out of fiction to dupe the US into Invading Iraq.
Obama has briefly interceded to protect a populous from what would have been a bloodbath.
He learned from Bush 1 and Clinton to not make their mistakes and have the blood of 10,000s on his hands like they did in Kurdistan, the Balkans, Rwanda, etc...
Sorry, but even with the redneck poorly self examined, simplistic, binary good vs evil electorate that eats the steady diet of dis information from the Neo Con mouth pieces, Obama stepping in and fucking up a bad guy rag head resonates, and your shit talking will get no traction.
Sucks to be on the wrong side of history...

Yeah,yeah, yeah. "Bush lied, people died".
The fact is Congress voted for the invasion of Iraq, for the Ds to say that they were duped, only after the going proved tougher than expected, was just pathetic excuse making. The bottom line is that they saw political advantage and took it, no matter how much more difficult it made the task, and how many more lives their lack of resolve cost. Hussein had to go, and now Khadafi has to go. There is no place in a civilized world for SOBs that bomb civilian airliners out of the sky. Khadafi should have been eliminated long ago. You'd better believe that the goal of the current mission is to remove Khadafi, just not by our hand directly. I wish Obama success in that.

Obama is not the one I'm criticizing, it is those who thought the so-called "war on terror" was the worst thing in the world when Bush was our leader, but can now perfectly rationalize Obama's continuation of virtually every action Bush took, even when he fails to seek congressional approval.

I am glad we agree that Obama is doing the right thing.

Oh, so Bush was doing the right thing too, you just think it cost too much. Fair enough.

Bush's 10 year fiasco/ taking out a bad guy = Obama's brief intercession to protect a populous / taking out a bad guy.
Sure, Day, I believe these are equivalent statements. Whatever...
As long as the right thing happens, whatever..

It was decided that helping the UN to initiate a no-fly zone is ultimately cheaper (for you, the US taxpayer) than having to rescue a whole country from a humanitarian crisis where the dictator is killing his own people by the thousands. smart move. i think most people would agree.

this is hardly comparable to what the bush admin started.

Clevis Hitch wrote: Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor[1]), often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae, translating to law of parsimony, law of economy or law of succinctness, is a principle that generally recommends selecting the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest new assumptions, when the hypotheses are equal in other respects.[2] For instance, they must both sufficiently explain available data in the first place.

The principle is often inaccurately summarized as "the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one". This summary is misleading, however, since the principle is actually focused on shifting the burden of proof in discussions.[3] That is, the razor is a principle that suggests we should tend towards simpler theories (see justifications section below) until we can trade some simplicity for increased explanatory power. Contrary to the popular summary, the simplest available theory is sometimes a less accurate explanation. Philosophers also add that the exact meaning of "simplest" can be nuanced in the first place.[4]

Occam's razor is attributed to the 14th-century English logician, theologian and Franciscan friar Father William of Ockham (d'Okham) although the principle was familiar long before.[5] The words attributed to Occam are "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem), although these actual words are not to be found in his extant works.[6] The saying is also phrased as pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate ("plurality should not be posited without necessity").[7] To quote Isaac Newton, "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes."[8]

In science, Occam’s razor is used as a heuristic (general guiding rule) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models rather than as an arbiter between published models.[9][10] In the scientific method, Occam's razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic, and certainly not a scientific result.[11][12][13][14]

In 2005 Marcus Hutter mathematically proved[15] that shorter computable theories have more weight when calculating the expected value of an action across all computable theories which perfectly describe previous observations.



I wish you were half as smart as you thought you were, maybe you'd be worth something other than a punch-line...

awesome. you watched the 2nd season of House, have a computer, and know about wikipedia.

talk about a punch line.

tbwilsonky wrote:
awesome. you watched the 2nd season of House, have a computer, and know about wikipedia.

talk about a punch line.

I was thinking the movie contact with Jodie Foster. Funny, the original post basically stated the simplest answer is likely right, yet the Wikipedia entry says:

The principle is often inaccurately summarized as "the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one". This summary is misleading, however, since the principle is actually focused on shifting the burden of proof in discussions.[3] That is, the razor is a principle that suggests we should tend towards simpler theories (see justifications section below) until we can trade some simplicity for increased explanatory power. Contrary to the popular summary, the simplest available theory is sometimes a less accurate explanation. Philosophers also add that the exact meaning of "simplest" can be nuanced in the first place.[4]