Do you use Occam's Razor to K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid)? let's explore...

Occam's Razor is a philosophical construct named after William of Occam village in England. The simplicity heuristic (rule of thumb) is underpinned by two core principles:

1. The Principle of Parsimony - It is pointless to do with more what can be done with less

2. The Principle of Plurality - Plurality should not be posited without necessity

To paraphrase, a simple explanation with least assumptions is usually the best one. The philosophical razor is used to shave unnecessary assumptions.

The battle between simplicity vs complexity is at least 2000 years old fought by everyone from Aristotle to Apple computers.

Aristotle - "Nature operates in the shortest possible way"

Leonardo Da Vinci - "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"

Einstein - “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”

Apple - Steve Jobs was a messiah of simplicity and ruthlessly shaved as many parts as possible - iPhone eliminated physical key pads.

So why is everything so complicated in everyday life? Let's run a thought experiment..

Imagine an insect born at night time with life expectancy of 48 hours. Everything is dark in the first few hours and nothing makes sense until the sun breaks next morning. The brightness is followed by another stretch of darkness and so on. At the end of its life, the insect recognizes the pattern.

Simplicity is nothing but pattern recognition, it is the function of time & processing power.

1. Time - X axis: If you live long enough all patterns emerge, everything makes sense and it is a virtue of experience.

2. Processing power - Y axis: If the insect had enough computing power at birth, it would have launched a satellite into the space and would have realised that earth is rotating and a pattern would have emerged as soon as it was born.

Despite scientific advances, we have not made much progress conquering time (life expectancy has just about doubled in the past two thousand years) but computing power has grown exponentially (Moore's law).

Computing power in the form of deep learning algorithms and AI is helping humans recognize patterns much sooner than lived experience.

If you are drowning in complexity, remember to increase your altitude along the Y axis or seek help from an experienced mentor who is further down the X axis.

Whether you believe in simplicity or complexity.. be happy and be kind to others.

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