Wednesday 19 March 2014

ockham's razor

After days and days of no resolution and aggravating, conflicting accounts and patience that's out-waited even the stingy faith of the insurance-brokers, the families of the missing souls of Flight MH370 who disappeared with no trace must be enduring a waking nightmare. Despite every modern, hyper-connected nuance there is to transportation, surveillance and other forms of cleverness, the combined efforts of many nations cannot locate the airliner, and while I sadly suspect that people's expectations of what such domineering technology can deliver under-estimate the vast scale of the Pacific Ocean, there are many theories out there—mostly I believe with the intent of keeping hope alive and not just useless grand-standing, fed by the changing details of authorities.
Ockham's Razor is a sort of philosophical decision-chart, lex parsimoniae, holding that the explanation with the least assumptions is probably the right one. This guidance, however, also contains its own anti-thesis (an anti-razor) since the principle also holds that the only remaining explanation after others have been duly eliminated, however implausible, must be true. Just after contact was lost, it was disclosed that three passengers on the manifest were traveling under false credentials, and despite being initially dismissed as the kind of paranoia that makes the best crowds for security-theatre, the high-jacking supposition now is accepted fact. Some suggest that the whole plane was kidnapped and is being ransomed by sky-pirates with the condition of a total media blackout; others believe that the aircraft was spirited away for some future high-profile attack on a metropolitan centre and is in the mountain lair of an evil-genius, and all explain how this could be carried out, convincingly—more less. Considering the changing stories, some believe that some military power, testing out a new, secret weapon accidentally vapourised the wrong target. Conspiracy theories are usually not given the chance to thrive and not a one quite seems like blind-faith, but I do think that officials are not being exactly transparent with their search and believe something lies underneath. Whatever the truth ultimately revealed, I hope the families find their peace and I hope that dispatching search teams and enormous resources is not exactly the diversion that the alleged masterminds behind this tragedy was hoping for.