WEBVTT - How Occam's Razor Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.160 It's Josh coming back at you hot with our twenty 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:07.680 eighteen joint on Ockham's razor, one of the more semi 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:12.000 understood scientific principles, but it's also probably the most widely 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.079 used of them, all too or misused. I guess I 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.439 should say we have a medieval monk who became one 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.920 of the early proto scientists to thank for Ockham's razor, 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.239 which makes him a hero to science. And here's our 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:32.239 episode on that hero. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:42.280 from HowStuffWorks dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.559 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.199 there's guest producer Tristan over there. So it's stuff you 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:49.640 should Know. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:52.239 I don't know how these are going to release, but 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.640 as you've noticed, Tristan weirdly grew out his mustache in 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:56.400 the last hour. 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.680 Again, he's quick, he's very past. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.080 He can make it go in and out, in and out. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:04.479 What is that. 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.120 It's like he's growing his mustache and it's sucking it 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.800 back in. Oh, okay, sucking it back in. No, No, 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:15.039 like a reverse Plato. Right, do you remember that Plato 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:15.720 set with the. 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:16.880 Like a little meat grinder. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:19.800 No, there was one where like you could grow a 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:21.360 mustache on it, dude. 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:23.080 Correctly, I think I remember that. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.480 Yeah, but imagine if you could reverse it too. 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.160 It was called the Plato Nightmare set. 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:35.640 Yeah. Is that your nightmare? Growing a Plato mustache? Waking 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:36.120 up like that? 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:38.840 Yeah, I've had that dream about once a week for 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.039 about thirty five years. 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.200 Like all the rest of you is chuck, but just 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.319 your mustache is Wallace and Grommet. 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:46.120 Yeah, dude. 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:52.320 Yesterday, I uh, there was a bad smell. Emily and 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:53.920 I were having a glass of wine at a wine bar. 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.640 There was a bad smell nearby. I think it was 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.600 a dumpster or something, and they were growing fresh herbs 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:04.200 at the wine bar, and I rubbed a rosemary bush 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:10.040 and then swiped it all over my mustache. And Emily's 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:14.000 mind was blown. She was just like, oh my god, 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.560 Like I can't believe, Like that's an actual use for 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:18.280 facial hair. 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:20.400 Yeah, I guess it just to. 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.440 Hold in that smell. It was like, well, you can 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.040 wipe it on your upper lip. It's probably the same thing. Sure, 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:26.680 maybe the hair retains more. 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.639 Essential oils. I don't know, maybe which essential oils. Man, 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:33.519 people are clamoring for that episode. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:34.840 Yeah, we should do that. 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:36.000 We will eventually. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:37.799 It's been a big part of my life for ten 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:38.760 and twelve years. 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.720 Now, Essential Oils. We'll talk about it someday, but not today. 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.519 No, no, because Chuck's gonna stumble through a philosophy podcast. 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.320 It's a yeah, I guess it is philosophy. It's the 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.160 philosophy of knowledge. Epistemology is another way to put it. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:59.560 But specifically, Chuck, we're talking today about a little ditty 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.200 you may have heard of before called OCAM's razor. 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:03.840 Called the Gambler? 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.120 Have you? Have you ever you've heard of Okham's razor before? 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.400 Right, Well, so much so that I thought for sure 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.280 we had covered this, But I realized that we just 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:15.880 talked about it quite a bit in the Uh Scientific 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:17.079 Method episode. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:19.360 I'm not at all surprised because a lot of people 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.000 say that the basis of science, which is how humans 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:29.920 approach nature in our universe and us and everything scientifically, 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.840 the basis of that is Ocham's razor. And if Okam's 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:36.800 razor sounds familiar but you can't quite place it, you've 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:42.520 probably heard it as something like given two possible outcomes 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:47.800 or explanations or whatever. The simplest version is probably the 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:48.320 right one. 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.360 Yeah, it's a pretty even that in its simplicity is beautiful. 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:59.160 The mere statement itself is an example of its simplicity 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.920 and how wonderful can be just to think, like, yeah, 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.800 you know what, let's get through all the gobbledygook. I 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:10.560 think the easiest way to explain this. Whether it's a 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.040 A H A A what do you call the orb 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:16.040 in a photos? 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:17.320 Yeah, it's not. 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.919 It's not your great grandfather coming to visit you on 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:25.040 a different plane. It's really just an error with your photographs. 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:30.200 It's the flash, yeah, reflecting off a like water vapor 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:30.680 in the air. 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:33.840 Or Kennedy probably acted alone. 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:38.640 Kennedy he shot himself from Afar. 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.520 Yeah, I clearly meant to say Oswald acted alone, because 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:49.240 that is the simplest explanation, not this very convoluted, deep 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.120 plot that goes that one hundred people were involved in 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:56.440 to assassinate Kennedy. 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.520 So we'll talk about all that because it's a teaser. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.680 What you're doing right now is has become pretty standard. 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.360 You're using Okham's razor to disprove other people's points. 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.440 Yeah, there's this is. 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:14.080 A total and complete misuse of Okham's razors not the 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.680 original intention. The original intention had nothing to do with 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:22.320 saying that's wrong. It is just a heuristic device, a guide, 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:27.279 a rule of thumb that tells you that, because things 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.240 tend to be more simple in the universe, if you 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.440 if you're doing something, don't make it harder than it 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:37.640 has to be. Don't add more to it than is 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.920 needed to get the job done. And there's actually a 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:42.680 couple of ways to put this, and both of them 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.960 get attributed to William of Ockham, who will talk about 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:46.520 in a second. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:47.600 Yeah, Billy Ockham. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.239 But one is called he sounds like a baseball manager. 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:50.680 Yeah. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.800 But one is called the principle of plurality. 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:54.440 Yeah. 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.240 Harder to say fast than you would think it is, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.120 And that is translated from the Latin plurality should not 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.560 be positive without necessity. And the other is the principle 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:06.960 of parsimony, which is it is pointless to do with 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.960 more what is done with less. From what I understand, 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:14.880 they are one and the same. Oh really, I could 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.360 not find anyone who could explain the difference. And I 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:22.320 see them interchangeably, not just like on some dude's blog, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:28.800 but I'm like, you know, it's the Internet Encyclopedia philosophy 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.760 or the Stanford Encyclopedia philosophy, Like they don't seem to 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:33.400 be different. 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.400 Well, parsimony, it seems different to me because that specifically 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:42.800 is like not using resources, not spending money if you 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.640 don't have to. And that seems different than plurality. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.720 Okay, well then then let's explore it. So plurality adding 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.120 to something, doubling something, maybe just making it more than 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.920 just the singular. He's saying plurality should not be positive 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:59.480 without necessity. Right, So I guess what he's saying. Then 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:04.880 if they are different, then if you're if you're guessing 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.720 at something, if you're trying to explain something, don't make 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.200 it harder than it is, don't make it bigger than 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.520 is absolutely necessary to explain it. 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:14.559 Yeah, that makes sense. 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.160 Or and this is a really big point that we'll 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.160 see in a minute. William of Occam really was saying, 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:25.320 don't don't add on to something beyond what you know 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.720 to be true and correct, which a lot of people 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.200 over time, and I think he actually maybe explicitly was 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.400 an impirsist have said William of Ockham was an Impisis. 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:40.240 He was saying that you need to experience things through 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.640 your senses to know that they are true. 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.960 Yes, empirical evidence if I can look at it or 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.400 smell it, or taste it or feel it. 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:49.680 What's the fifth one? 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:52.680 Uh, tickle it, tickle it. 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:54.640 And then the sixth one, of course we know means 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:55.840 Bruce Willis is really dead. 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:57.000 See the ghost of it. 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.120 Yeah, if there is no empirical evidence, if you cannot 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.200 experience it with one of your senses, then. 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:07.000 It's it's poo pooed. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.520 So so it is so. And those two things, like 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.040 you really especially modern science, especially science these days, you 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.520 put them together. It's given two things. Go with the 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.400 simpler explanation, and you don't don't believe anything that you 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:25.520 can't sense one way or another through your sensus empirically. Right, 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.200 you put those together, you have the basis for modern science. 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.559 And so the idea that that that things that are 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.880 simpler are better, or the idea that the universe is simpler, 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.920 Like when you start to think about it, it's all 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.760 over the place, right, Like the the idea that the 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:48.800 universe is based on simpler being better is found everywhere. Right, So, 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:54.200 like there's things that things have fewer parts, things that 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:59.359 require less energy, the encapsulation of larger ideas into smaller 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.760 amounts of words or theories or whatever. All these things 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.840 are very much prized by humanity. So it just kind 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.600 of makes sense that Okham's razor is a sensible thing 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.960 and that you could actually use it to uncover the 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.079 mysteries of the universe. Yeah, but again, that's not really 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.199 necessarily the case, to tell you the truth. 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:20.040 No, I mean, there's there's gonna be a lot of 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:22.880 uh and and this stuff is kind of fun, just 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.600 a lot of back and forth on Occam's razor throughout 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:28.480 this whole thing, because there is no its and that's 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.720 kind of part of the whole jam of Ockham's raiser 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.000 is there is no right or wrong here, right. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:35.800 You know what's weird is that? Right? 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.080 A lot of people point to it though that it's 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.080 oh this is right. I just proved you wrong and 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.000 that's just not true. Man. 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:45.600 All right, should we take a break early? 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:47.720 Okay? 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:49.360 Yeah, I think we should take a break. 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:50.720 Now because I need to get my head wrapped around 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:53.760 this and we'll come back getting the way back machine 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:54.880 and visit Billy Ockham. 0:09:55.240 --> 0:10:21.520 Okay, so now Billy Ockham sounds like a nineteen eighties 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.080 recording star. Oh sure, like Billy Ocean. 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.840 Yeah, get off of my razor and get into my car. 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.480 Was this so we should say the razor too. It's 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.840 a philosophical term, so term of philosophy, the razor used 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:43.040 to scrape away unnecessary stuff. So it's Okham's razor. So 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.560 let's go back and meet Billy Ockham, shall we. 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:51.320 Yeah. 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.959 And you wrote this by the way back in your 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:58.160 in your article writing Days, and you point out very Astutelee, 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.720 that this is from a time in our history of 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.760 the world where you might not have had a surname. 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.680 You may have been William of Ocham, which is the 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:11.000 case here, which is in England. And he lived between 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:15.079 about twelve eighty five and thirteen forty nine, and he 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:19.440 was a philosophical dude and a Franciscan monk, and he 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.000 very much like you point out, took his valid poverty 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:27.680 very seriously and lived a very meager, humble life. 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.920 Yeah he did. He also expected the church to take 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.840 the same vow Potterphy, and he actually butted heads with 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:36.840 the church quite a bit, so much so that he 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.800 ended up getting excommunicated, as we'll see, but he was 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.760 the real deal as far as like a true believer went. 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.040 The weird thing about William of Ocham was that he 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:54.600 was also a genuinely independent theeker and a rationalist, which 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.560 at the time rationalism and the church did not go 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:03.120 hand in hand. They were there was really not much rationalism. 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.360 So for an idea, the idea for this this upstart 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.319 Franciscan monk to start questioning the ideas of the church, 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.080 and not only that, but how the leaders of the 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.080 church conducted themselves, and how much money they surrounded themselves with, 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.920 and how much power they had politically. This is it 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:21.439 was a big deal, right. 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:22.440 Yeah, And he is not. 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.000 He did not invent this line of thought as much 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.400 as he's probably attributed to this to people that just 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.800 know him from like a jeopardy board. This is already 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.720 a line of thought well established by this time in 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.600 the medieval times, and he was just he kind of 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.600 boiled it down to those two sentences that you were 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.199 talking about so anyone could understand it. He could put 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:47.920 it on a bumper sticker and a T shirt and 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:48.880 sell it, right. 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.080 So it was Aristotle who was the guy who came 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:56.440 up with this idea first, that simplicity equals perfection, and 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.840 perfection equals simplicity. Said, the more perfect a nature is, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.680 the fewer means it requires for its operation. 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:02.960 Right. 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.040 I love that, So that makes sense. 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:05.720 That speaks to me. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.480 But then over time, in between Aristotle and William it 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:11.840 kind of got expanded. So let me give you an 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.520 example of that same thought from Robert gross Test who 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.600 was an early scientist also a theologian I believe too. 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.440 Here is his version of it that is better and 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.560 more valuable, which requires fewer other circumstances being equal. For 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.520 if one thing we're demonstrated from many in another thing 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.480 from fewer equally known premises, clearly that is better, which 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.480 is from fewer because it makes us know quickly, just 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.120 as a universal demonstration is better than particular because it 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.920 produces knowledge from fewer premises. That similarly, in natural science, 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.880 in moral science, and in metaphysics, the best is that 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.560 which needs no premises, and that better that which needs 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.120 the fewer other circumstances being equal. 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:58.880 Boy, the ironies there are rich. 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.679 Right. So within less than one hundred years, William of 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.000 Auckham comes along, and he's just like plurality should not 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.719 be positive without necessity, Robert. 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:10.600 Yeah, And Robert was like, well, yeah, I guess that's 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:11.560 one way you could say it. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:16.760 So I want to say something though, before we keep going, Chuck, 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:20.240 I actually found a correction of my own article, oh 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:21.320 that I missed before. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:22.080 What's that? 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:27.760 It turns out that they think now that another theologian 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:33.160 slash scientist from William of Ockham's era named John Dunn 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:37.160 scottis was the one who really encapsulated this principle of 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.040 plurality and principle of parsimony, and that it was a 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:44.880 guy from the nineteenth century, William Rowan Hamilton, a British mathematician, 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.600 that he was the one who misattributed it to William 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:48.160 of Ockham. 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:54.400 So is William of Aukham just a a know nothing, No, No, 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.960 His writings definitely included this stuff, and he never took 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.160 credit for this, Okay, But they think think that it 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.040 was actually John's done. 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:07.040 Scott is who who encapsulated it the way that we 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:08.080 tend to think of it now. 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:09.680 So he's sold the bumper stickers. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.200 But right, But William Levacam thought this way, and he 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.520 was a radical thinker and a rationalist, as we'll. 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.080 See, right, and like you kind of teased out earlier, 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.800 he did butt heads with the church over this. He 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.080 wrote a lot about it, and the church was not 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:29.960 into it, and Pope John the what is that twenty second? 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.120 They kind of squared off on this, and of course 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:37.000 the Pope wins all battles, at least back then, and 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:41.160 he was excommunicated in several of his his monk brothers 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.120 and I take that to mean not real brothers, right right, 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.280 were excommunicated. In thirteen twenty eight, he went to Munich 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:54.360 seeking refuge. He was protected there by Emperor Louis the fourth, 0:15:55.320 --> 0:16:01.320 and ultimately he went out because he started right about 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.680 Pope John the twenty second, saying he's a heretic, and 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:06.400 people ultimately believed him. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:07.000 Right. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.800 He definitely made some pretty convincing points. And he also again, 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.000 like if you're saying I took a vout poverty, the 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:18.080 church really should too. And the church isn't poverty stricken 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.480 and you are. It gives you a little more credibility 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.640 from the outside as well. Sure, so there's some reasons 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.640 why William of Waucam is this theologian, a devout Franciscan 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.840 Monk is looked upon as one of the fathers of 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:36.440 Western science, like the foundation of Western science right, or 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.440 science in general. And the reason why is he argued 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.520 against the prevailing ideas at the time, which is called 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:48.359 medieval synthesis. And this is very much championed by Thomas Aquinas, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.880 who's a famous theologian. I believe he was a saint 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.640 and one of the reasons he was canonized was because 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.080 of this. Thinking about this, But the whole medieval synthesis 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:02.160 thing was that God was first and foremost everything. Right, 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:07.160 you were a member of the church just as much 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.640 as you were a member of your country, a citizen 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:14.359 of your country. All human knowledge came from God, and 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.440 Thomas Aquinas it wasn't just like the end. Thomas Aquinas 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.040 used philosophy to prove that sentiment that all human knowledge 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.760 came from God, and here is how. And basically it 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.080 took the idea of cause and effect and said that 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.360 you can trace every effect back to a cause, back 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.000 to another effect, back to another cause, but ultimately you 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.000 were going to end up on God, and that all 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.359 of our conceptions of everything arose from God's conception, and 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.840 that God willed that we understand things this way, which 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.000 means that this is the perfect way to understand it, 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.160 which means it's right right. So that is not what 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:53.240 William Wackam thought. He was again a rationalist who said, no, 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.639 we tend to think things are things because that arises 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.879 in the human mind from cognition, not from God. And 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.399 this dude was not a heretic. He believed that you 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.720 didn't apply rationalism to God, that God required faith, sure, 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.200 and rationalism stood on its own it was a different thing. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.000 And you couldn't know God through your senses. God was elsewhere. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:19.720 Leave God out of this. And the fact that he 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.560 was able to really successfully lay like a philosophical groundwork 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.600 for this, a rational groundwork for it's one thing today 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.880 to be like I'm a secular humanist, you know, I'm 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.199 rational to forget the church that's today. This is at 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.439 a time when this guy is saying this and the 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:39.600 church has the power to burn you at the stake. 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.600 Like he was a stand up rational thinker, right, which 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.919 kind of makes him a hero of rationality today. But don't. 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.200 And this is another perfect example of how Accam's razor 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.400 gets confused. Accam himself gets confused too, he's a hero 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.840 of science, but it was also one of the more 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.200 devout human beings walking the earth at the time. It 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:02.840 was a monk for basically his whole life. 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.719 And also had a metal band called Medieval Synthesis. 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:07.800 Oh that is a good name, isn't it. 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:09.760 So he was just a conundrum. 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:11.919 Yeah, he was a conundrum for sure. And again he 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:17.080 got excommunicated. He had to escape by horse stolen horse. Oh, 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:18.800 I mean he was not very monk like. 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:21.000 No, But all right, So. 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.879 We were talking earlier about empirical evidence and how that 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:26.879 kind of fits in here, and the fact that if 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.320 you can't you know, like, you know the sky is 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.080 blue because you look up and you see it's blue. 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.760 You know a bird makes a whistle because you can 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:37.040 hear the bird make a whistle. 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.520 So it's very easy to sort of use. 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:46.520 That and say sure, but if you don't, if you 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.240 can't see it or hear it empirically or any of 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.320 the senses experience it, it's very easy to poo poo. 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.000 And you give a great example here with Lorenz and 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.159 Einstein and kind of which one would win out. So 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:05.120 both of these guys, both physicists, Einstein obviously more popular 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.320 will see. For a very important reason. They both had 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.840 the conclusion mathematically that with the space time continuum, the 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:14.640 closer we get to moving at the speed of light, 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.920 the more we slow down, which is hard to wrap 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.639 your head around. So Lorenz comes out and says, explains 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.040 it away because of changes that take place in the ether, 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.679 which he might as well have said, a bit of 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:31.800 magic happens. Einstein didn't, and so the one we talk 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.439 about today is Einstein and not Lorenz. That explanation of 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:39.200 Einstein was more rooted in science, and he didn't say 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.080 something wacky like the ether, which is something empirically you 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.280 can't see or smell or taste. So Einstein, you know, 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.119 he won that great battle. 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.000 Yeah, he very famously said, He goes, I don't know 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:53.960 what's what, but I know it ain't got nothing to 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:54.760 do with no ether. 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.080 My brain's gonna end up in a jar in some 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.120 guy's garage in New Jersey, right. 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.439 And everybody will love that picture of me with my 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:07.639 tongue sticking. 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.240 Out, and Walter Mattho will play me in a romantic comedy. 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.760 So Laurence violated that principle of plurality. Right. He added 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.440 something to this that required an additional basically like a 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.080 leap of faith. There was no empirical evidence that there 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:23.520 was such a thing as the ether. 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:25.800 And he said, did I say ether? And I didn't 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:27.880 mean ether? And never went no, no, no to. 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:28.560 You, late Laurent. 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:29.600 Well we heard you, buddy. 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.080 And he's still I mean, he's a respected he's a 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:33.160 respected physicist. 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:33.360 Still. 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:35.600 It's not like he was some crackpot or anything like that, 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.920 because if you put his equations in Einstein's equations side 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.199 by side, they came to the same conclusions. It was 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:46.920 just explaining how Lorenz seems to have misstepped right, right, 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.720 But he was obviously at least as brilliant as Einstein. 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:52.920 When it comes to that, he's just a little nuts apparently. 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:56.199