Occam’s Razor is a principle that states that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is usually the best. The name comes from the 14th-century philosopher and theologian William of Ockham, who advocated for avoiding unnecessary assumptions and complexities in reasoning. It is often used to eliminate unnecessary assumptions or hypotheses in science, logic, and problem-solving. Here are some examples of Occam’s Razor in action:

• When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras. This means that the most common or likely cause of something is more probable than a rare or exotic one.
• If two competing theories explain the same facts equally well, choose the one that makes fewer assumptions. This is also known as the principle of parsimony or simplicity.
• If you have a headache, it is more likely that you are dehydrated or stressed than that you have a brain tumor. This means that you should not jump to extreme conclusions without sufficient evidence.



敬意 そして 適切であることが
静けさ そして 潜在的であることが
安らかさ そして 本物であることが
望みだ

単純で素朴で平明で飾りのない
そんな感じを好んでいれば
自然と言葉が少なくなる

素直で質素で謙虚でシンプルな
そんな風でいようとすれば
所作や行動が慎み深くなる

言葉を少なくし 行いを慎んでいると
ほんとうのことが近づいてくる

昨日 正しかったことが
今日も正しいとは限らない
今日 正しいことをしても
明日には 間違ったことになっているかもしれない

でも 柔軟で
自分の考えを変えることができて
自分の間違いを認めることができたら
そして 自分の無知を知っていれば
きっと なにもこわくない

君といる
そうすれば
なにもこわくない

『ニコマコス倫理学』のなかに「μεσοτης」という徳が出てくる
行き過ぎの「蛮勇」と足らなさ過ぎの「臆病」の間の「勇気」とか
財貨についての行き過ぎと足らなさ過ぎの間の「満足」とか
怒りについての行き過ぎと足らなさ過ぎの間の「温和」とか
名誉についての行き過ぎと足らなさ過ぎの間の「矜持」とか
行き過ぎと足らなさ過ぎの間にあるのが「μεσοτης」という徳だ
アリストテレスは「μεσοτης」を守ることが大事だと説いた
「μεσοτης」は 孔子の『論語』のなかに出てくる「中庸」に似ている
孔子の孫の子思が完成させた『中庸』で説明されていることのそれぞれは
どれも「μεσοτης」のようだ

「μεσοτης」はいい
「中庸」もいい
極端でないのがいい
思慮深いところもいい

極端は面白い
だから信じる人は多いけれど
真実から遠いことが多い
逆に中庸は面白くない
だから人気はないけれど
真実に近いことは多い

中庸であるには
一方で努力し
他方で諦めるということを
しなければならない
相反することのバランスを保つのが
中庸なのだ

中庸を身につけた人は少ない
でも 中庸を身につけた人がいたら
どんなにいいだろうと思う

身につけることのできない中庸に
憧れている
その憧れは
君への憧れに似ている
ずっと憧れている

私は
読書の喜びを
知っている
でも
私は
あまり本を読まない

本は
読む人を
夢に導く
でも
夢と交わることができれば
本は必要ない

私は
音楽の魅力を
知っている
でも
私は
あまり音を奏でない

音は
奏でる人を
虜にする
でも
生きるのに熱中していれば
音を奏でることはない

でも
というか
じつは
というか
私は
何も知らない

知は
無知な人を
興奮させる
でも
私は
知より君を選ぶ

字が並んでいたら
はじめの一字を読み
次に二字目を読み
そして三字目を読む

道可道非常道と並んでいたら
道 可 道 非 常 道 というふうに読めばいい
それなのに
道 可 道 非 常 道 を
道 道 可 常 道 非 という順番に並べ替え
道の道とす可きは常の道に非ず と読むなんて
簡単なものを難しくしているだけのこと

Life is a tragedy when seen in closeup, but a comedy in long-shot. を
Life closeup in seen when a tragedy is but in long-shot a comedy . と並べ替え
人生は近くで見ると悲劇だが、遠くで見ると喜劇だ。と読むのは
簡単なものを難しくしていて まさに喜劇であり 悲劇だ

ただの言葉を学問にするから わからなくなる
だれでも話している言葉を
並び替え こねくり回しているうちに
なにがなんだかわからなくなってしまうのだ

道可道非常道と読めばいい
Life is a tragedy when seen in closeup, but a comedy in long-shot. と読めばいい

そして
君を見るときに

君を見るときに 並べ替えたりしてしまうと
ほんとうの君が 見えなくなってしまう
君は君のまま 見ればいい
君らしい君を 見ればいい

ニュースで見る世の中は酷いことばかり
理不尽なことや悲しいことでいっぱいだ
でも散歩して見る世の中は呑気なもので
ゆったりした風景とのんびりした人々が
ぼんやりした時間を贅沢にすごしている
靴を脱いでズボンをたくし上げ水に入る
ニュースのようなことはここにはないと
思っていたら転んで水に濡れてしまった
やっぱりこの世の中は酷いことばかりだ
この濡れた服をどこかで乾かさなければ

風はすべて追い風。わたしがどこを向くかだ。

Without knowing ourselves, it’s almost impossible to find a healthy way to interact with the world around us. Without taking time to figure it out, we don’t have a foundation to built the rest of our lives on.
Being alone and connecting inwardly is a skill nobody ever teaches us. That’s ironic because it’s more important than most of the ones they do.
Solitude may not be the solution to everything, but it certainly is a start.

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

You can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next, by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest, by their preference for the discussion of ideas.

“All conditioned things are impermanent” — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.

I’m a probability advocate. In previous jobs, I have helped create election scoreboards. Probabilities are more meaningful than safe “anything can happen” platitudes, vague “it’s likely” analyses or artificially confident guarantees.
But I’ve come to realize that I was wrong about a major aspect of probabilities.
They are inherently hard to grasp. That’s especially true for an individual event, like a war or election. People understand that if they roll a die 100 times, they will get some 1’s. But when they see a probability for one event, they tend to think: Is this going to happen or not?
They then effectively round to 0 or to 100 percent. That’s what the Israeli official did. It’s also what many Americans did when they heard Hillary Clinton had a 72 percent or 85 percent chance of winning. It’s what football fans did in the Super Bowl when the Atlanta Falcons had a 99 percent chance of victory.
And when the unlikely happens, people scream: The probabilities were wrong!
Usually, they were not wrong. The screamers were wrong.

In sociology, the Matthew effect (or accumulated advantage) is the phenomenon where “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” In both its original and typical usage it is meant metaphorically to refer to issues of fame or status but it may also be used literally to refer to cumulative advantage of economic capital. The term was first coined by sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1968 and takes its name from the parable of the talents in the biblical Gospel of Matthew. As a result of the Matilda effect, Harriet Zuckerman is also credited by Merton as the co-author of the Matthew effect.

I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Keep it Simple – これはAppleのデザインに対する一環したフィロソフィーである。全てをシンプルにする事。それが彼らの中心的な考え方になっている。実は、彼らに限らずよく海外のデザイン業界では下記のフレーズが頻繁に使われる。

• Less is more
• Everything you need, nothing you don’t
• Perfection is achieved when there is nothing to take away

これらはシンプルである事がどれだけ重要であるかを表現している。シンプルである事には、

• うつくしい
• わかりやすい
• つたわりやすい
• こわれにくい

などのメリットがある。もし余計なものを一切廃し、最小限のコストで最大限の価値の創出が出来れば、それは最も優れたデザインプロセスという事も可能だ。

Accepting the world as imperfect, unfinished, and transient, and then going deeper and celebrating that reality, is something not unlike freedom.

I think of the paraphernalia my young daughters pick up on our walks, things I stopped noticing long ago — discarded feathers, stones worn shiny by water. They’re drawn to these treasures for their expressive textures, shapes, and colors, each thing unique in the world. So miraculous just the way they are, and yet so simple.
In our culture, “simplicity” is often code for a life that’s meticulously organized or for spare, boutique perfection. We’re brought up to strive for the best, the brightest, and most extraordinary. It may not be natural to us to seek pleasure in the quotidian, let alone a Japanese concept that celebrates rust.
But what could be more radically simple than acceptance? As Richard Powell, author of “Wabi Sabi Simple,” told me, “Accepting the world as imperfect, unfinished, and transient, and then going deeper and celebrating that reality, is something not unlike freedom.”
I find the idea of abandoning “perfect” and even “good enough” irresistibly tempting. Life — the fingerprints, scars, and laugh lines — is itself perfectly imperfect, and I can embrace the beauty in that.

The truth is that we are already perfect as we are: perfectly imperfect, that is. For all the positives in our lives, we will always have negatives, too. It’s a delicate balancing act: With out the negatives in life the positives will lose their value. …
With all the good we encounter in life, there will always be at least a bit of bad, just as we will always find a piece of fortune in the misfortune when we are close enough. Why does the universe work in this mysterious way? Maybe because flaws and mishaps are great stimuli for growth and creativity.

There are similarities and differeneces between Taoism’s “Nothingness” vs Buddhism’s “Emptiness”.
Both “Nothingnesss” and “Emptiness” are not simply referring to the absence of phyical things. It is about the realization of the “being” of one self and the universe.
Taoism and Buddhism believe that the universe is created or origninated from “Nothingness” or “Emptiness”. It is interesting that the modern science also proposed that there is “nothing” before the creation of universe. ie. Before time and space exist, there is “nothing”.

When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.

Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.

In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why.

When people pushed the plane, the wheel cranked out, and then the aircraft could continue to move.
“Real men can plant a tree, build a house, and push a plane.”
“We just want to get back home.”

Emptiness in the interior has many faces. Engel, Benjamin and Bertoni each point out different promises related to the idea of a sober interior: quietness and potentiality for Engel, adequacy and respectability for Benjamin, authenticity and serenity for Bertoni.
‘Emptiness’ thus stands for many things. There is a common understanding in contemporary interior design that emptiness has to do with an absence of ornamentation and decoration, and refers to a condition in which there is no overload of signs and objects that might block the experience of space and spatiality. Nevertheless closer analysis shows that there are many different ways of interpreting ‘empty’ interiors.

Emptiness as Potential. Different Conceptions of the Sober Interior (PDF)

Numberphile is made possible by support from the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), based in Berkeley, California.
The best mathematicians from around the world come to MSRI – usually for a semester – to target hot research topics. Sort of like a mathematical “Dream Team” or “Avengers Assemble”!
You can read more about MSRI at the institute’s website.
In addition to reseach, MSRI is also involved with outreach and education.
In 2014 the institute joined forces with Numberphile, allowing us to continue making YouTube videos.
As a result, Numberphile will have opportunities to visit the centre and interview the visiting experts – a chance to pick their mathematical minds. We’ll continue showing that mathematics has a fascinating history but is also “alive” with new breakthroughs.

Wabi Sabi is more than just a way of looking at beauty, it is a state of mind.

To Taoism that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the possibility of growth and change there can be no Tao. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Minimalism is a tool used to rid yourself of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what’s important so you can find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.
Minimalism has helped us:

• Eliminate our discontent
• Reclaim our time
• Live in the moment
• Pursue our passions
• Discover our missions
• Experience real freedom
• Create more, consume less
• Focus on our health
• Grow as individuals
• Contribute beyond ourselves
• Rid ourselves of excess stuff
• Discover purpose in our lives

By incorporating minimalism into our lives, we’ve finally been able to find lasting happiness.

We live in a complex world. With constant drives for innovation and technological advances the complexities of designs get greater and greater and the core design requirement of the end user can get lost. To deal with this, after the initial design processes, we take a step back and begin the process of stripping away all the complexities and unnecessary features until there are no more left to remove. At this stage we reconsider the ‘integrity’ of the design to see how it appeals to the target user group. This process aims to create the most cost effective, usable, focused design, with optimised manufacturability.
… it’s easy to design complex things but much harder to create simple, timeless designs. The most successful designs have taught us that less is nearly always more.

(Simplicity) = (Durability) + (Beautiful Design)

If you expect a “user-friendly” introduction to usability and that the history of usability is full of well-defined concepts and lean methods, you’re in for a surprise. Usability is a messy, ill-defined, and downright confusing concept. The more you think about it—or practice it—the more confusing it becomes. We learned that the history of usability is a “perverse journey from simplicity to complexity”.
If we go far back in history, Vitruvius (1st century BC) was probably the first person to lay forth systematic and elaborated principles of design. His three core design principles became very influential:

• Firmitas: The strength and durability of the design;
• Utilitas: A design’s usefulness and suitability for the needs of its intended users;
• Venustas: The beauty of the design.

みなさん、こんにちは！
ヒカルの婚約者です。既にご存知かと思いますが、ロンドンのホテルでバーテンダーとして働いています。
私はバーテンダーという堅実な仕事をし、それにより地道に生活を営んでいます。他の人と何も変わりません。私は普通の家庭で育ちました。私の家族は故郷の町の皆から愛され慕われている誠実な人たちで、私に正直さ、愛、献身、勤勉さの意味を教えてくれました。家族は私に多くを望むことを求めたことはなく、ただ希望と勇気をもって人生に向き合う道を示してくれました。
私のような普通の仕事をしている平凡な男が、ヒカルのようなスーパースターと一緒になるということが不思議に感じられるかもしれません。私自身も初めは信じられませんでした。
私たちは出会い、時とともに互いのことを知るにつれ沢山の共通点を発見しました。その共通点の一つが、相手に対する気持ち、互いへの深い愛でした。
正直なところ、ロンドンで将来を切り開いてみようと故郷のプーリアを出た時には、まさかこのようなことになるとは夢にも思いませんでした。しかし、これは神が定めた事であり、私はそれを信じます。
少ない言葉ではありますが、このメッセージを私の自己紹介とさせて頂きます。

古来より日本はエンプティネスを運用してきました。昔の日本人は自然の中に神様がいると考えていて、その神様を呼び入れるために空っぽの神社をつくりました。中身は空っぽだけど、ひょっとしたら神様が入るかもしれないという場所です。つまり日本人は、そこにある可能性を拝んできたのですね。それが日本のエンプティネスの源流です。室町時代に生まれた銀閣寺や茶の湯、また日本の国旗の赤い丸も同じ流れの中にあります。それらはすべて、どんな意味も自在に受け入れる空っぽの器として、あらゆる可能性を内包します。
一方、シンプルという概念は150年ほど前に生まれました。それ以前の世界では、国を治める絶対的な力の象徴として、あらゆるものに複雑な文様が刻まれていました。中国の龍や渦巻きの模様、イスラムの幾何学模様、バロックやロココ様式など、世界は複雑性に満ちていました。しかしそんな情勢も、社会の中心が王から個人へ移ることにより一変しました。力の表象としての過剰な装飾は消え、モノと人間の関係性を最短距離で結ぶかたちが合理的だと考えられるようになりました。そこにシンプルが誕生したのです。

ゆっくりとした時間
そして静けさ
考える時間
そして沈黙
誰かが作ったものを楽しむ時間
理解しようとする気持ち
何にも邪魔されず
誰にも指図されず
好奇心いっぱいの心
答えのない疑問
監視員のいない遊び場で
ひとりで遊ぶ

«Ils s’instruisent pour vaincre »

«S’adapter en permanence »

不便で良かったこと、ありません？ ふと考えてみると、手間いらずで効率的に要求が満たせる「便利な道具」よりも、むしろ不便な道具を使うほうがうれしいことがあります。

• オートマ <−−> ミッション
• 電動鉛筆削り <−−> ナイフ
• クレジットカード <−−> キャッシュ
• エアコン <−−> 火鉢
• 電気アンカ <−−> 湯たんぽ

We can all think of small cities that are lovely to live in – tranquil and green and blessed with efficient public transport.
And then we can think of big cities that are global economic powerhouses – teeming with the noise, energy and ambition of millions of people.
I want London to have the best of both worlds.
I want London to be the best big city on earth.
That means a place that brims with opportunity and talent and economic activity of all kinds, but also one where the pace of life can suddenly slow from one street to the next; where children can grow up in safety – where people can be seen walking or cycling with no purpose other than enjoyment.
That is why we have developed this transport strategy in tandem with the London Plan and the Economic Development Strategy, because taken together they help to outline my vision for the Capital.
What is our objective for transport? As I said when I launched ‘Way to Go!’, it is very simple: to help people get from a to b as quickly, safely and conveniently as possible. That’s not just because I want to make people happier in their daily commuting, it’s also because I want London to be the world’s number one location as a place to visit, do business and invest.

Русские рекламисты говорят: “Наш товар – самый лучший в мире”,
европейские рекламисты говорят: “Наш товар – самый лучший в Европе”,
евреи говорят: “Наш товар – самый лучший на этой улице”.
В реализм поверить проще всего!

In a just world, schoolkids would learn who the real discoverer of the structure of DNA was: Rosalind Franklin. But the world is rarely just.

The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it – and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

In and out of college the man with ideals helps, so far as in him lies, his college and his country. It is hard for a boy to understand that in life, whatever he does, he helps to make or mar the name of his college. As has often been said, the youth who loves his alma mater will always ask not “What can she do for me?” but “What can I do for her?”

「自らの力で成長していこう」という気概を失ってしまっては、個人も、国家も、明るい将来を切り拓くことはできません。芦田元総理は、戦後の焼け野原の中で、「将来はどうなるだろうか」と思い悩む若者たちを諭して、こう言いました。「どうなるだろうかと他人に問いかけるのではなく、我々自身の手によって運命を開拓するほかに道はない」と。
この演説をお聴きの国民一人ひとりへ訴えます。何よりも、自らへの誇りと自信を取り戻そうではありませんか。私たちも、そして日本も、日々、自らの中に眠っている新しい力を見出して、これからも成長していくことができるはずです。今ここにある危機を突破し、未来を切り拓いていく覚悟を共に分かち合おうではありませんか。
「強い日本」を創るのは、他の誰でもありません。私たち自身です。

The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it – and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
我々がこの取り組みに注ぎ込む精力と信念、そして献身的な努力は、この国とこの国に奉仕する人々を明るく照らし、その情熱の光は世界を輝かせるはずです。
そして、同胞であるアメリカ市民の皆さん、国があなたのために何をしてくれるかではなく、あなたが国のために何ができるかを考えようではありませんか。
また同胞である世界市民の皆さん、アメリカがあなたのために何をしてくれるかではなく、人類の自由のために共に何ができるかを考えようではありませんか。