Sunday 6 July 2003

Pic of the day: I am quite satisfied with the Mach3 razor from Gillette. But that's not quite what I mean ...

Itland's Razor II

We like simplicity. Oh, not in all things. Ornate decorations are popular from time to time. Convoluted plot twists make for good books, although most are even more in love with stories where the explanation is very simple and yet well hidden. In addition to fiction, this also happens in science time and again.

Long ago, the movement of the planets was explained by gods that moved the stars around in the sky. Later we got the Ptolemaian system, with wheels within wheels to explain how planets sometimes seemed to turn and go the wrong way for a while. Then God said: "Let there be Newton!" and we got the law of gravity. Today it is generally assumed that there are only four basic forces in the universe, and they are all the same one only it kinda fell apart when it got too cold, so now it expresses itself differently in different situations.

The search for simplicity has been formally known in philosophy as "Occam's Razor": Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Or in other words: If one reason can explain several things, that's better than having many different reasons.

Beyond science, Occam's Razor has been used to justify monotheism over polytheism, and later atheism over theism. (Although some still think having 1 god explain all things is the best use of Occam's Razor. I have debated that point once in the past.)

***

A couple weeks ago there was another study here in Norway that showed that most Norwegians were either happy or very happy. The exception was divorced men, who were generally unhappy. Overall, single men were less happy than married people, cohabiting people, or single women. But then again, the group "single men" included the unhappy divorced men, so it is hard to say whether other single men are unhappy.

Now we can make a simple explanation for this. Let's take the ultimate feminist explanation: "Marriage is organized slavery, an institution where the woman has as her task to make the man happy. But he has no such obligation, as seen from the fact that the women notice little difference."

There can also be a masculinist view (OK, there is no such word as masculinist, but I guess pointing out that is pretty telling in itself). "Both men and women are unhappy if forcibly kept apart from their children – as would indeed any mammal – but in our society children go with their mom, so the father is left unhappy."

My personal favorite is a third: "In adult life, and especially a bit into it, there are more women than men. If people generally want to be paired up, then a man who is not paired up must have some kind of affliction or handicap that makes him quite repulsive, either in body or soul. This problem is the cause of both the divorce and the unhappiness."

The beauty of the third theory is that it relies solely on natural selection; it does not require a global conspiracy in favor of one or the other gender.

Itland's razor: Do not multiply conspiracies beyond necessity.

***

In our search for simplicity, it is easy to go too far, and latch on to conspiracy theories. These have the beauty of absolute simplicity at their core: "God did it!" "The devil did it!" "The Jews did it!" "The men did it!" - although the actual details tend to be very complicated indeed.

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they are not really theories at all. A theory needs to be "falsifiable". That is to say, you would be able to detect if it was wrong. Say for instance the theory that Earth was created ca 6000 years ago. If we find dinosaur bones that are 200 million years old, the theory would have to be revised. So perhaps Earth was created 200 006 000 years ago, but it was still created! Well, there are these stones that, based on the laws of nature as we know them, seem to be like 4 billion years old. Well, then perhaps Earth was created 4 000 006 000 years ago... But it was still created! (No, really! Creation is a perfectly valid theory. Creationism is not.)

In contrast, conspiracy "theories" operate on the premise that they cannot possibly be wrong. So what if the dinosaur bones look like they are 200 million years old? God almighty is, by definition, almighty. So he could have put the bones there to test our faith. Or he could have allowed Satan to put them there to test our faith, if it seems a bit immoral for God to do such a things himself. And the scientists are in it with Satan, of course, regardless of their personal morality or religion. So no matter what they say, it matters nothing. The "theory" cannot be wrong, thus the world is wrong for not going along with it. Blame it on the terrain, the map is just fine!

This could all be true. Then again, the world might just be created last Tuesday by the omnipotent invisible pink unicorn that lives in the underwear drawer, and we would never know, because the IPU also created us with all these memories. Who knows the mind of the Invisible Pink Unicorn? The problem is that searching for the truth does not bring us closer to the truth, since someone has found the truth already. Since searching for more truth might distract us from the complete truth we already have, it is better to huddle in our cave and dismiss all those rumors about artificial fire. Surely if it was possible to make fire, our Elders would have told us so.

***

Smile while you can. Meanwhile, millions (or possibly a few hundred million) Muslims believe that the Jews razed the World Trade Center in order to blame the Muslims and initiate a crusade. Then the crusade actually starts, officially because the lack of evidence for Weapons of Mass Destruction is proof that said WMD are being hidden, which is a Bad Thing. One can only wonder what is next. A capitalist conspiracy to take over the world by force? Oh wait, been there, done that.

Due to the human tendency to look for simple solutions, people see conspiracies everywhere. All crime is caused by immigrants, but the bleeding heart liberals are conspiring to hide it. Homosexuals are trying to destroy society from within using furry comic books, like that "Donald" duck without trousers. The Japanese are conspiring to take over the world with spying equipment placed in consumer electronics and brainwashing waves coming from the TV...

The line between conspiracy theories and sheer clinical madness is thin and blurry. Of course, some of us have long known that most other people are actually insane. But don't tell, because they will come and put us away. It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy! But I will defend myself to the last with my razor.