To preface this, I'd like to say that although I will be bringing him up a lot, I didn't write this specifically to pick on my friend. I've just been thinking of a good way to write this blog for a little while now, and he just provided me with a decent way to structure it. I don't actually care about the argument at hand, but it just struck me as an excellent way to demonstrate what I'm talking about.
But what am I talking about? Occam's Razor, and how that relates to the way that people analyze both works of fiction and science. Occam's Razor is a principle of logic that states that when analyzing data, we should seek out the solution that makes the least possible number of assumptions. This makes sense, right? We should draw conclusions from the data at hand - what we know is true as opposed to what is true, because then we are more likely to be correct. As we find more evidence we then re-evaluate our conclusion accordingly because we now have more data to look at. A good example of someone failing to use Occam's Razor is just about any conspiracy theory. I'm not saying that being suspicious of government activity is never valid, but generally all conspiracy theories operate on a number of assumptions that the theorist assumes to be true out of paranoia and/or fear.
To demonstrate Occam's Razor more efficiently, I'll use the aforementioned argument I had with my friend. The argument has to do with Star Wars and, more specifically, this iconic wall of text:
There is no other evidence in the films to either refute or deny this information other than the fact that it has many otherworldly life forms which seems to give credit to the "far, far away" bit. So therefore, using Occam's Razor (and therefore logic), we can assume two things: 1) Star Wars takes place a long time ago and 2) Star Wars takes place far, far away. Now I think this is a good idea from a creative standpoint because in a way it makes Star Wars timeless. 100,000,00 years from now people can't be like "Aw, that's rubbish because our future didn't turn out anything like that and none of the galaxies far, far away are like that, either". By making it in our past instead, we can maintain suspension of disbelief forever by saying "Oh, that's actually the ancient past".
But then there's my friend's interpretation, which is that the story is actually being told by some distant future storyteller, and they are telling their audience (which is not us) about their galaxy's past, which is still our future. I think this is absolutely stupid thinking.
Now there's nothing wrong with having different interpretations of a text or film or whatever, but I think people sometimes use that as a shield to not have to support your opinions. Yes, you should have your own analysis In fact, that's awesome! That's what I love about art. But if you can't back up your interpretation, it's very shallow and invalid.
A good example would be to look at Hamlet's sanity in Hamlet. The book provides enough textual support on both sides to have an interesting discussion. I personally think Hamlet is crazy, but my AP Literature teacher thought he was sane. We actually had a fairly in-depth discussion on this in class one day and it was very interesting because we could both point to the book and show evidence for our claims. We were both operating under Occam's Razor to the best of our ability, so the argument was a good one. The movie Inception is also very fun to have this kind of analysis with and sets itself up to be discussed as such.
Star Wars, however, is much more straightforward. It doesn't set itself up to be interpreted falsely, and yet my friend does this by making a series of assumptions for which no support is given. He assumes the following:
1) There is a future storyteller.
2) We are not the intended audience.
There is absolutely zero context for any of these within the films themselves. It's not like Frankenstein or even The Hobbit movie where we have a frame story (or like, 3 of them in Frankenstein's case) where there is clearly an external narrator telling these events to someone who is not us. Therefore his interpretation has absolutely contextual support, and he's just making stuff up, which is totally fine, I just don't get the point in that. I like looking into things and trying to have my own ideas about them, but I like them to be backed up in the story
But again, nothing above really matters. It's just flippin' Star Wars. I just thought it was a perfect example to demonstrate how Occam's Razor works, because it's a really good tool to use when making conclusions about things. To summarize: Less assumptions = stronger and more logical arguments. I think this is good to use both in reality and fiction, because it gives our beliefs and opinions more strength so that we can better support them and validate them. Yes, we're all entitled to our opinions, but nobody is gonna take them seriously if the whole of your reasoning is just "Well that's just what I think" with no support.
At least, that's what I assume.
