We’re All Simpletons in a Complex World

Exposing Occam’s Razor as Humanity’s Favorite Way to Avoid the Hard Truth

In life, nothing is as simple as we want it to be. Ideally, we could use our powers of logical reasoning to solve our problems, such as:

A is true,

and B is true,

Therefore, C is true.

For example:

All dogs are animals.

All animals die.

Therefore, dogs die.

But the world is not so simple. It is just not. Our brains can handle simplicity—simple deductions like the above— but the world is not simple. It is complex. There is a mismatch at play here. If the objective is to understand the world around us, we have the wrong brain for the job. (If our objective is merely to survive and procreate, then our brains will suffice.)

It is very difficult to handle complexity we encounter in the world. To get around this, we invented Occam’s Razor: the idea that, out of all possible solutions, the simplest solution to a problem is likely the most correct one. Is Occam’s Razor true? Or is it simply a justification for our inability to comprehend the complexity we find in the world? I think it is merely a justification. We can never know what is true. What we understand as truths are merely those things that the most people can agree on. But we can only agree on those things that everybody can understand, which leaves us with the simple things (such as dogs are animals, life ends, gravity holds the solar system together). Therefore we have Occam’s Razor.

In other words, we are simpletons, and we develop justifications that mask our incapacity to comprehend the world. Keep it simple. Cover up the massive complexities with simple theories and equations. That is all our simple mind circuitry can do.

The world is a mysterious place. And all we can do is the best we can do. But only fools think they can understand the world.