Occam's razor (and why we use it)

This post provides an explanation of Occam's razor and why we use it - again, it's basically a transcription of a video that I made a couple of months ago (feel free to check it out):



Suppose you hear a vase break.

You go to the living room and there's little Jimmy, next to the broken vase. He says that a cat did it.

But you don't even have a cat in this household.

So, Jimmy says, some cat must have sneaked in from the outside.

You remember closing all the windows and doors.

So, he says, it must have entered the house before you closed them.

Russell's Teapot

This post provides a short explanation of Russell's teapot and is basically a transcription of a video that I made a couple of months ago (feel free to check it out):

Imagine I make the following claim:

1.  There is a teapot - which is too small to be seen by telescopes - and it orbits the sun somewhere around mars.

Let's say I don't offer any proof or evidence for my claim. Would you take my claim to be true?

This analogy was put forth by Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), who wanted to demonstrate that even though no one can disprove the existence of such a teapot (since we said that it's too small to be observed anyways), he would expect no one to believe in its existence either.