Occam's Razor - Aventure - Rearview - Volume 11 / Issue 4 / October 2021

JGI Jain - Aventure - Volume 11 / Issue 4 / October 2021

Occam's Razor

"LIFE IS REALLY SIMPLE, BUT WE INSIST ON MAKING IT COMPLICATED"

A recent newspaper article about a strategy to tackle the pandemic, in which the interviewee made a mention of Occam’s Razor got me started with ripples of thoughts!

Razors are a man’s best friend! My fixation on sharp razors for a clean and smooth shave despite sporting a permanent goatee, is a gene that I probably inherited from my father. Or could it be my grandfather?! Y-chromosome has played its role in three generations!

Occam’s Razor conjured up in my mind the launch of a new brand of shaving system, imported from an advanced country to offer a smooth shave. My mind traversed Google land before it settled down on an immensely popular principle.

The principle involved in Occam’s Razor is attributed to a 14 Century theologist and logicist, William of Ockham who gave the world a rule: “Entities must not be multiplied without necessity.” His original line in Latin when translated reads thus: “Plurality must never be posited without necessity.”

Occam’s Razor is used as a heuristic, a ‘rule of thumb’ to guide scientists in shaping theoretical models. Biologists, to study evolutionary change, medical professionals, to carry out diagnosis – all are benefitted by the sharpness in this razor. But the irony is that the common man, when he does a root-cause-analysis of simple matters, tends to over-engineer the problem and the solution to put forth multiple theories to support the hypothesis.

This principle has its application in almost all fields but finds a firm foothold in the field of medicine. The principle suggests that the simplest explanation is the most likely; the simplest answer - that is, the answer that requires the fewest assumptions - is generally the correct one. A non-medical instance would be a flat tire that should be attributed to a nail rather than miscreants slashing the tire, while a medical one would be a bad headache caused by dehydration rather than the likelihood of cancer.

Juxtapose this with the situation in vogue, where the healthcare system subjects patients to a plethora of tests and a quagmire of diagnosis, an antithesis to the principle under discussion. The healthcare system’s rhetoric is the attempt to annihilate the extremity of a disease condition before it is too late to treat.

While both appear right, a humble ask is that let sanity prevail and lead us through a middle-path. Like any popular principle, it comes with many contrasting schools of thought – no need to deduce without examining various factors in detail.

The stand-out feature of this principle is there are a number of unsupported assumptions in any explanation; the good news is: this principle when invoked reduces the likelihood of being wrong. Occam’s razor is also known as the law of economy or the law of parsimony. The “razor” refers to the ‘shaving away’ of extraneous material and assumptions.

It is at this point, after a little research that I concluded that all razors are not necessarily razors. Just like all elephants are not always elephants – the allusion of course is to the metaphorical idiom ‘Elephant in the room’. For instance, a mountain is made out of a molehill in one’s imagination. But when discussed and examined, the mountain, erected overzealously, may well collapse to reveal the tiny molehill.

Let me provide an example from my long career in the IT (Information Technology) industry working for MNCs. At an overseas data centre that we maintained for our client, the power went off at exactly at the same time every day causing a major disruption in the services. The client was very upset, and we as the services partner, did an extensive root-cause analysis but in vain. Then it occurred that we should study the CCTV recording; what was discovered threw us all out of our wits. A janitor, was seen pulling out the plug charging the data centre equipment from the wall outlet, to plug-in her vacuum cleaner! This caused a minor malfunction in the adjacent power outlet which caused the power outage. This entire process took almost a week since the experts believed in evaluating all IT protocols, while overlooking a very common human mistake.

With a newfound concept to drive my actions in my daily life, I conclude there is no need to go for an overkill of simple problems for plausible solutions. I admonished my spouse when she complained that the maid-servant had turned lackadaisical in her work ethic when I quipped: “ask her to get her eyes tested at the earliest.” It turned out to be the best antidote and the work quality improved by leaps and bounds.

Off to our daily chores with a light mind and a lighter heart, may there be a razor-sharp focus in our thinking and endeavours. A simple and minimalist approach at most times can return a bountiful of benefits. What causes us human beings to make solutions available at eye-level to be escalated with massive over-kill approaches? Do we need a gun to kill a cockroach at home? Why not assume that a simple thought can lead to a ground-breaking new business model? I can’t agree more to this adage from Confucius: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated!” Do we apply the principles of Occam’s Razor?