Applying Occam's Razor to your religion

Lent 2020 - Day 20

I trust my readers are familiar with Occam's Razor? [Paraphrased, the principle devised by William of Occam states that the simplest solution, the solution with the fewest assumptions, is most likely the right one.] Example: lights are seen in the night sky, too low, too far over to the east and too late at night to be a commercial airliner coming into land at Warsaw Okęcie airport. A UFO? Which is more likely - advanced beings from another solar system moving over Powsin, or a radar calibration flight?

Which is more likely - that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and left His tomb - or that some decades after the Crucifixion, some of followers claimed that He had indeed risen, conquering bodily death?

Which is more likely - that upon Mount Sinai, God, the Creator of the Universe - handed Moses two stone tablets upon which were written the Ten Commandments, or that Moses made up a story?

OK. I shall stop there, and leave you to decide.

But which do I consider to be more likely? That after my death - that's it - eternal oblivion, or, that in some form or other, the consciousness within me outlasts my body? Here, I trust my instinct. I feel it will not perish. It is a strongly held view - to my mind at least - more valid, more real that the view that our consciousness is but a temporary, phenomenon, here for a blink of the eye for Eternity. The qualia-memories resulting from your observations in this life, detached from your ego, are what will live on.

Let's apply Occam's Razor to superstition. Mankind has a tendency towards superstition. Black cats crossing our path, avoidance of the number 13, breaking mirrors, solitary magpies etc. The superstitious mind sees an object of ill omen; and then, should something bad then actually happen, the relationship between the two unrelated events becomes causal. Good luck is also believed to be brought on by unrelated factors - placing a lottery ticket under a 'lucky object' (as my mother used to do - under the lucky Buddha) is not going to shorten the odds on winning.

The links we often make between actions and events that aren't justified by reason and observation boil down to wishful thinking or superstition. I'm also thinking here about Karma. This is also linking actions and events - do something bad, and something bad will befall you in the here and now (not in a Catholic purgatory or hell). And do an act of good, and something good will happen to you. Smacks of a religion imposing social order - but yet we often see it and believe in it.

One that came to me yesterday - the story of the Soviet submarine, the Bezbozhnik ('Atheist'). Told to us as teenagers (can't remember whether in Catholic grammar school or in the Polish church? Or by my mother?) Anyway, the Bolsheviks built a submarine, called it the Bezbozhnik, and it sank on its maiden voyage, drowning all its crew. Karma. Except it never happened. Yes, the Soviets had a submarine of that name, you can read the full story here.

I have often felt that the Universe is held together by a web of coincidence; that there is meaning to be found in the relationship between events. Is it? Should we seek it? Should we apply Occam's Razor and seek the simplest solution?

On the basis of my experience, I see it this way: if you observe a rare occurrence, it lodges in your consciousness. See it again, and it should be a call to thought, thought that can prevent disaster (dis-aster - from the Latin word for 'star' and the prefix for 'to split' or 'to reverse'.

Seeing meaning in coincidence should not be taken as an omen that something bad will happen - but it should be seen as a wake-up call to shake us out of complacency, to consider that the ways things are right now will pass; to a better state or worse state. Coincidences may be read as flashing beacons that warn.

Occam's Razor is a useful tool, though it has its limitations. One of them is to be able to slice through the subjective experience and state, irrefutably, what another person's subjective experience really means. And here, I'd agree with William of Occam - science is a question of empirical fact based on experiments that can be replicated, but the metaphysical remains a matter of personal revelation.

Can you apply Occam's razor to the qualia of my subjective experience?

This time last year:
In search of spiritual immortality

This time two years ago:
Knowing and being and intuition

This time three years ago:
Rzeszów - capital of Poland's south-east corner

This time six years ago:
A tipping point in European history

This time seven years ago:
Random sentiments from London suburbs

This time eight years ago:

Stalinist neo-classicism in Warsaw

This time nine years ago:

A week into Lent

This time ten years ago:
Afternoon-dusk-night in the city centre

This time 11 years ago:
A particularly harrowing reality

This time 12 years ago:
Wetlands waiting for the spring