The Enigma Of Occam's Razor

Hello again. Welcome to the newly created second edition of this blog. My intention with this was always to examine more material about "Life Cycles Theory" itself as well as to critique other systems and theories in this general area (like astrology/numerology/synchronicity etc). Sometimes I use related posts from the other blogs to look at a series of articles (like 'The Google Story' parts 1/2/3, or the Carly Simon 'Who's So Vain' series). My guiding principle is that you never quite know what to expect. With all this in mind, I'm currently doing a series of articles set in the middle ages and this will slot neatly into it. It will also slot neatly into material on the nature of the theory itself, as well as asking the ultimate question. Intrigued? Well, you should be. This article is dedicated to my very good friend Yun Yi, who runs several fascinating and informative blogs such as "Human Without God". She's one of my favourites.

William Of Ockham's Most Famous Saying.......Which He Never Actually Said!

Hands up if you've heard the name William of Ockham? Or the more well-known principle attributed to him by the name of "Occam's Razor"? I don't want to get ahead of myself here, so let's just begin at the beginning. William was a Franciscan friar, philosopher and theologian, believed to have been born in the village of Ockham in Surrey. Most sources say this was in either late 1287 or early 1288, so I'll be using this for our examination. 

The term "Occam's Razor" did not appear until a few centuries after his death. It was credited to Libert Froidmont, who used the term "novacula occami". Neither did Ockham invent the principle that "entities are not to be multiplied without necessity", but rather the principle of "the razor" has been most closely associated with him. These days it is taken to mean we have to keep paring back all the unnecessary layers of explanation until we are just left with what we can prove. It has thus become a favourite phrase used by sceptics and rationalists, although it was originally owned for most of its history by religious scholars and formed part of their doctrines.

William's life can be divided into two discrete halves. For the first part he lived in England and trained in theology at Oxford University, where there was an associated Franciscan convent. He didn't complete his course and never became a fully qualified "master" of theology, but after two years returned to Greyfriars, in London, which was known to have an intellectually lively atmosphere. Here he wrote about a wide range of theological and philosophical subjects, including logic, predestination and an Exposition on Aristotle's Physics.

His writings attracted the attention of one John Lutterell, the Chancellor at Oxford in the early 1320's and in 1323 he accused him of heresy, because of some statements made in his required coursework. However, what Lutterell really saw was an opportunity to further his own career. Apparently at the same time he had become so unpopular with the other regent masters at Oxford that he was expelled as Chancellor and went to the papal court, at Avignon in France, to try to resurrect his fortunes. 

Did you know this??... At one stage Rome elected another Pope, so there were two and then to resolve it they elected a third Pope!

This was at the same time as William was called to Avignon to answer his charges of heresy in early 1324. His first inquiry was found to have taken many of his writings out of context, but a second inquiry was called for and he was eventually found guilty; although no immediate action was taken and only two years later he had fled to modern day Munich. He was ultimately excommunicated for fleeing the Papal Court, but he lived under the local King's protection until his death in 1347.

So just what does all this really mean? I'm referring to the biography of William's life here, not the rights and wrongs of excommunication. OK, now just clear your mind and focus for a minute. What is the essence of "Life Cycles Theory"? A message so blindingly simple, yet of such intellectual depth. For literally hundreds of cases I have analysed using publicly available sources, I have found an overwhelming proportion to have experienced a career and life-defining event take place in their age 36 year. The year I refer to as their age 36 "Year of Revolution", their 'magic year'.

Now go back to the paragraph talking of William's date of birth and what do you get? That's right most probably late 1287 or early 1288. Now add 36, it's that simple. You get late 1323 or early 1324 don't you. This was right in William's biggest year, the one where he left England never to return; the one that divided his life into two halves and determined his future. It also largely marked the end of his philosophic and theological writings, for he later concentrated on political issues of the day involving the Franciscans, who took their vows of poverty literally and opposed the selling of papal indulgences.

Now you probably have heard me say I don't deal in causes for my findings. Whatever people may make of them, I don't much care at this point. I only care about what I can reasonably prove. So, "Life Cycles" if not a belief system like religion is. Haven't I pared all unnecessary layers of explanation back to literally nothing, by simply never inventing any to start with? Is my work not the very embodiment of the modern-day version of "Occam's Razor" ?

How can the sceptics and rationalists and scientists deny the quality of my work? You know the really big question that gets endlessly debated these days is, why do you need a concept of God as the creator, when the simplest explanation is that nature just evolved itself. OK, some will agree and some will disagree in an endless circle of debate, but what if I have found something outside of this, that is totally unexpected in the model of a random and self-evolving universe? Yes, I grant you it's not dramatic and involves no miracles or afterlife promises, but it exists none-the-less.

In a world of information constantly bombarding your senses and ready-made solutions seemingly available for all of life's problems, I sit humbly in a tiny corner, espousing this brand new philosophy of life. Till next time we meet I wish you good fortune.