Ockham and the ex

A C13th monk from Woking helped me the other day, with a tale of an ex-boyfriend and some dodgy jewellery.

A friend was having a nice old moan about her ex. A person in a shop had suggested her necklace, a present from him, was a fake.

Now people like a conspiracy. He would have known it was fake, she told me, this was typical of him.

It's very hard to argue against a conspiracy. Lot's of things might be possible. I might be writing this using only my ears, it's hard to disprove possibilities. The convoluted conspiracy also tends to be a bit more fun.

This can be frustrating in conversation for seekers of truth and calm reason like you and I. So I told her that while it might be true is was fake and it might even be true that he knew, that the truth is most likely the simplest explanation.

Probably, it was real and he wasn't a dodgy.

This is William of Ockham's razor. A system of logic that says the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. It's useful.

Just nod and agree

I probably didn't fulfil my role as a sounding board to have a good old moan at. People just want you to nod and agree, especially when having an ex rant. They don't want medieval logic.

At least I didn't say 'Plurality must not be posited without necessity' as Ockham would have done. He was actually challenging the over elaborate theology of the time but the modern evolution of his idea is that the least convoluted explanation is most likely to be correct.

Want to know the outcome? The necklace was verified as genuine by a jeweller.