What is the Principle of Occam's Razor
If I lost a sock, would I rather assume that I'm absent-minded, or that it was stolen by aliens? Or if I tripped over a stone, did someone specifically place it there for me, or was I simply inattentive?
The answers to such questions are obvious, and here we consciously or unconsciously apply the principle of Occam's Razor. It was introduced by the English philosopher William of Ockham, who lived as far back as the 13th-14th centuries. The principle suggests that when there are several theories or explanations for the same phenomenon, preference should be given to the simplest explanation, that is, the one that requires fewer assumptions or entities.
This is not a rigid rule, and sometimes it's advisable to prefer something more complex, but this method has been successfully applied in science to this day.
Questions about socks and stones are easy. Let's take the question "did God create the world?" To accept this hypothesis, we need to agree with the existence of something much more complex than our world, introduce a new entity. Thus, Occam's Razor can cut away such a theory, since modern science offers much simpler and more elegant explanations.
This principle can be successfully applied in everyday life as well, including regarding human psychology. For example, we often overthink, attributing certain behavior to someone, when it would be more logical and simpler to explain this behavior by other causes. Or many of our own actions can be explained by very simple concrete reasons, rather than creating complex schemes.