Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'A Puzzle about Belief' and 'Mr Strawson on Logical Theory'

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2 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 5. Opposites
232 Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a)
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
22431 Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements [Quine]
     Full Idea: The power and simplicity of an algorithm, or indeed of any theory, depend on there being many occurrences of few elements rather than few occurrences of many.
     From: Willard Quine (Mr Strawson on Logical Theory [1953], III)
     A reaction: Not sure how this applies to a software function. One which produces a good result from a large number of input variables sounds particularly impressive to me. Many occurrences of a single variable sounds rather inefficient.