Why do we prefer simplicity to
complexity. This preference runs through history: Aristotle, William of Ockham,
Newton, Pascal – all praised parsimony and embraced it as a guiding principle
of work scientific. Biologically and spiritually, we are inclined to prefer
things needed to things not needed. Moreover, we prefer things needed to
admixtures of things needed and not needed. This is so, because things needed
are needed, encourage survival and enhance its chances. Survival is also
assisted by the construction of economic theories. We all engage in theory
building as a mundane routine. A tiger beheld means danger – is one such theory.
Theories which incorporated fewer assumptions were quicker to process and
enhanced the chances of survival. In the aforementioned feline example, the
virtue of the theory and its efficacy lie in its simplicity (one observation,
one prediction). Had the theory been less parsimonious, it would have entailed
a longer time to process and this would have rendered the prediction wholly
unnecessary. The tiger would have prevailed, ie eaten you.
No comments:
Post a Comment