electron'sbro

arxbarba:

In philosophy, a razor is a device which allows one to shave away unlikely explanations for a phenomenon.^[1]

Famous razors include:

• Aristotle’s razor
• Occam’s razor - assume simplicity over complexity
• Popper’s falsifiability principle
• Newton’s flaming laser sword

Hanlen’s razor is a good one. I use that all the time actually. Now I have a cool name to describe my line of thought.

Edit: Hmmm. Tumblr is only reblogging a portion of the list. Go direct to the original post. I’m too lazy to fix it up this morning.

(via anghenfil)

arxbarba:

Newton’s flaming laser sword is a philosophical razor devised by Alder in an essay (Newton’s Flaming Laser Sword or: Why mathematicians and scientists don’t like philosophy but do it anyway) on the conflicting positions of scientists and philosophers on epistemology and …

(via anghenfil)