Application of Okam's razor law

In the early 14th century, a prisoner escaped from a French prison.

At that time, Europe was in the dark middle ages. It was no big deal for a prisoner to escape from prison, but this man was extraordinary. He was a very learned Catholic priest, known as "irrefutable doctor".

His name is William. He was born in Okam, England. People call him "William of Okam". He studied at the University of Paris and Oxford, and was knowledgeable and eloquent. Because many of his remarks were inconsistent with the Vatican at that time, he was imprisoned in a French prison.

After four or five years in prison, he found a chance to escape, went to Bavaria and took refuge with the Pope's arch enemy, Emperor Louis of Germany. He said to Emperor Louis, "you defend me with your sword, I defend you with my pen." So emperor Louis, who was at odds with the Vatican, immediately took him in.

Later, he wrote books, but they had little influence. He was tired of the endless quarrels about "commonality" and "essence" at that time. He advocated nominalism and only acknowledged what really existed. He thought that those empty universal concepts were useless cumbersome and should be mercilessly "shaved off".

This is what he called "the principle of thinking economy", which can be summed up as "do not add substance if it is unnecessary". This maxim has brought him a great reputation. Because he is from okham, people call it "okham razor". It expresses such a meaning: it's very simple to make things complicated, it's very complicated to make things simple. When dealing with things, people should grasp the main essence of things, grasp the mainstream, and solve the most fundamental problems. In particular, we should conform to nature and not complicate things so that we can handle things well.

Since the birth of Occam's razor law, after years of baptism, it has been widely used in various fields.

In interpersonal communication, Okam's razor law can help people overcome the dilemma and make people communicate more effectively. In real life, many people are afraid of social interaction, that is, they suffer from what we usually call social phobia. This is because these people artificially complicate social interaction. If they can pick up the "Occam razor" and shave off the superfluous elements in social interaction, they will find that social interaction is actually very simple. It is just two or more people's dialogue and interaction with each other. Understand this law, but also can make people's social activities smoothly continue.