occam's razor

2 definitions found

occam's razor - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  Occam's Razor
      n 1: the principle that entities should not be multiplied
           needlessly; the simplest of two competing theories is to be
           preferred [syn: Occam's Razor, Ockham's Razor,
           principle of parsimony, law of parsimony]

occam's razor - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  Occam's Razor
  
     <philosophy> The English philosopher, William of Occam
     (1300-1349) propounded Occam's Razor:
  
     Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
  
     (Latin for "Entities should not be multiplied more than
     necessary").  That is, the fewer assumptions an explanation of
     a phenomenon depends on, the better it is.
  
     For example, some claim that God caused himself to exist and
     also caused the universe to exist - he was the "first cause" -
     whereas Occam's Razor suggests that if one accepts the
     possibility of something causing itself then it is better to
     assume that it was the universe that caused itself rather than
     God because this explanation involves fewer entities.
  
     The negation of Occam's Razor would suggest that an
     arbitrarily complex explanation is just as good as the
     simplest one.  (E.g. God and his cat created a robot called
     Sparky who built the universe from parts bought from a shop in
     another dimension).
  
     See also KISS Principle.
  
     (1995-11-09)