Why Occam is Important

ALBERT Einstein is credited with saying:

‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler’.

This is often presented as “K.I.S.S. — or Keep It Simple, Stupid”. The idea of keeping things as simple as necessary is very often accredited to a Franciscan monk from back in the 1300s — a chap called William from the English town of Occam (or Ockham) in Surrey.

William of Occam did indeed come up with a law of succinctness (parsimony) — but is this lex parsimoniae the same thing as advocating simplicity?

What is the Best Form of Government?

ALL today’s politics and ideologies are in fact pretty new. It’s odd that we just take for granted ideas like Capitalism, Democracy, Communism, Socialism, Trades Unions, insurance, banking, and even parliaments as the norms.

However, the truth is that they are all experimental ideas — all of them are man-made, designed, thought up, devised, planned and contrived — and they are not very old, so they have not had a lot of time to iron out the wrinkles.