Anyone else a Philosophy buff out there?
In college, besides getting a major in the subject along with my Computer Science major, I became fascinated with the history and theory of logic and reasoning. Of course, as a programmer, I spend my life working within the bounds of digital logic, so there was always more to it for me than just casual interest.
Anyway, recently at work, I came up with a theory for something one of my customers is running into. This theory was simple, elegant, and fit the facts. Unfortunately, it was wrong.
As many of you know, Occam's Razor is a means for choosing among different theories. Basically, the simplest theory is the best theory. But Occam's Razor is a guideline, not an axiom of science. My experience at work has given me pause in the last few weeks because usually Occam works for me!
I just spent about an hour reading through the wikipedia page on Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor) and I found it fascinating. Some of you may too. In my years since college, Occam's has apparently been fertile ground in many disciplines of science. Competing theories in Physics and particularly Astronomy in recent years have become absolutely fascinating to me.
I hope you enjoy that wikipedia article as much as I.
In college, besides getting a major in the subject along with my Computer Science major, I became fascinated with the history and theory of logic and reasoning. Of course, as a programmer, I spend my life working within the bounds of digital logic, so there was always more to it for me than just casual interest.
Anyway, recently at work, I came up with a theory for something one of my customers is running into. This theory was simple, elegant, and fit the facts. Unfortunately, it was wrong.
As many of you know, Occam's Razor is a means for choosing among different theories. Basically, the simplest theory is the best theory. But Occam's Razor is a guideline, not an axiom of science. My experience at work has given me pause in the last few weeks because usually Occam works for me!
I just spent about an hour reading through the wikipedia page on Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor) and I found it fascinating. Some of you may too. In my years since college, Occam's has apparently been fertile ground in many disciplines of science. Competing theories in Physics and particularly Astronomy in recent years have become absolutely fascinating to me.
I hope you enjoy that wikipedia article as much as I.