Occam's razor is a logical principle attributed to the medieval philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham). His principle states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed. This principle is often called the principle of parsimony.

Occam's shit stick is the opposite of Occam's razor. Occam's shit stick is when a conventional explanation of something seems complicated and to explain away perceived inconsistencies one come's up with an even more complicated explanation which is filled with even more (usually profound) inconsistencies.

Principle established by the logician William of Ockham in the 14th century. Like the Principle of Parsimony, this theory states that one should not make unnecessary assumptions and that the answer to a problem is often the simplest. It is the basis of methodological reductionalism and applications of its principles are commonly used in modern strategy and economics. *also "ockham's razor"

Occam's razor is a logical principle attributed to the mediaeval philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham). The principle states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed. This principle is often called the principle of parsimony. It underlies all scientific modelling and theory building. It admonishes us to choose from a set of otherwise equivalent models of a given phenomenon the simplest one. In any given model, Occam's razor helps us to "shave off" those concepts, variables or constructs that are not really needed to explain the phenomenon. By doing that, developing the model will become much easier, and there is less chance of introducing inconsistencies, ambiguities and redundancies.

Though the principle may seem rather trivial, it is essential for model building because of what is known as the "underdetermination of theories by data". For a given set of observations or data, there is always an infinite number of possible models explaining those same data. This is because a model normally represents an infinite number of possible cases, of which the observed cases are only a finite subset. The non-observed cases are inferred by postulating general rules covering both actual and potential observations.

For example, through two data points in a diagram you can always draw a straight line, and induce that all further observations will lie on that line. However, you could also draw an infinite variety of the most complicated curves passing th...

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "plurality should not be posited without necessity."

One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything,

A now-popular phrase in string theory and cosmology first coined by John Archibald Wheeler in the 1950's. Revived by Nicholas Meyler in the early 1980's (re-invented while a student at Princeton University enrolled in a Metaphysics of Time-Travel class), the term applies to both dimensions of infinite size (as opposed to particle physicists' idea of smaller higher dimensions as in Kaluza-Klein theory, standard string theory, etc.) and to an infinite number of dimensions. The innovation, if any, is that previously, 'infinite dimensions' had only been accepted in the realm of mathematics (Linear Algebra, Markovian Statistics, n-Dimensional Geometry, etc.), whereas Meyler proposed the obviousness of the infinite dimensional model being a reality, and suggested that they need not be 'small'.

While current theory is that there are 11 or 12 dimensions (string theory), Meyler advocates the infinite dimensional model based on the principle called "Ockham's Razor".

Relating to the simplicity of an assumption. Based on Occam's Razor: entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.