Why did Aristotle call it "Achum's razor"?, 'Nature always works in the shortest degree possible."

Answer 1

This philosophical "rule" does not come from Aristotle but from a philosopher of a much later time called William (of) Occam, who made the claim you quote. His law, known as OCCAM's razor, suggests that the most likely explanation for anything is usually the one that is most plausible or least far-fetched. In other words you cut away all the lesser possibilies to form the most reasonable hypothesis.

Answer 2

This is a puzzle, I am familiar with Occam's razor, which I have always thought was "the simplest answer is usually correct". According to Wikipedia (I have attached the page under sources) that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity" this is an alteration. It's often altered in this, way, but not entirely correct.

Aristotle was contemporary with Alexander, while William of Occam lived nearly 1600 years later.

If it was an Aristotelian observation, I wouldn't be surprised, most knowledge is built on previous work, or as Newton said "If I saw further, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants".

Answer 3

Often scientists refer to the principle of the simplest explanation that fits all the facts as parsimony (which means stinginess). Of course the simplest one is not necessarily the correct one. If you have to accept some assumption that is not repeatable or in any way supported by observation (e.g., a miracle), that's a loser.
One way of measuring parsimony is, suppose there is some number N of independent observations in some area of nature that no current theory explains. You propose a theory that explains them all (and maintains consistency with all other relevant observations), but the theory requires the introduction of more than N "free parameters" or arbitrary constants. This is considered non-parsimonious. N free parameters is break-even and less than N is a positive contribution.

Answer 4

To a huge, uncountable pile of clean socks! (Dumb @SS)