#35 Occam's Razor

The simplest explanation is usually the best one

Today is Wednesday and we are continuing our exploration of mental models with Occam’s Razor. Occam's Razor is a classic principle of logic and problem-solving that states the following - simpler explanations are more likely to be true than complicated ones.

This simple yet powerful mental model can help us find solutions to many problems without complicating things. A lot of times, when things go wrong, we come up with dozens of overly complex theories for why it happened or how somebody acted in a malicious way to cause harm. A lot of times, the simplest theory is the one that turns out to be true. Why did your wife get home late? Maybe she didn't get into an accident or is cheating with another man, but simply got caught up at work.

We can work it out mathematically as well. Take two competing explanations - one of them requires the interaction of 3 variables and the other 30. If all of the variable must be true to arrive at the conclusion, which one is likely to be in error? Even if each variable has 99% chance of being correct, the first explanation has 3% chance of being wrong, while the second one has 26% chance. The more complex the explanation, the more likely it is to be incorrect.

If you are thinking about reasons for why something happened, be on the side of the simplest explanation. Simplest explanations are easier to falsify, easier to understand, and are generally likely to be correct.

Explore other mental models such as reasoning from first principles, reversible decisions, inversion, resulting, and second-order thinking.