Occam’s Razor, a classic principle of logic and problem-solving

“Simpler explanations are more likely to be true than complicated ones. This is the essence of Occam’s Razor, a classic principle of logic and problem-solving. Instead of wasting your time trying to disprove complex scenarios, you can make decisions more confidently by basing them on the explanation that has the fewest moving parts. We all jump to overly complex explanations about something. Husband late getting home? What if he’s been in a car accident? Son grew a centimeter less than he did last year? What if there is something wrong with him? Your toe hurts? What if you have bone cancer? Although it is possible that any of these worst case scenarios could be true, without any other correlating factors, it is significantly more likely that your husband got caught up at work, you mismeasured your son, and your shoe is too tight.”

Excerpt From: Shane Parrish. “The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts.”