If you’re happy with this bit then I’m happy.
Regardless of a difference in interpreting Hume, let’s just say the problem of induction as it is widely accepted, be that from Hume or just because of him, relies on the two sentences I outlined.
As Grice, I think that any theory which posits a more complex view of reality carries with it the onus of justification - that is, we need not do the hardwork for it. It’s widely accepted that rejecting the principle of induction is counterintuitive and that it creates many more problems than it solves (which is none, it solves nothing).
The ‘burden of proof’ lies on proponents of enumerative induction, particularly with regards to (a) and (b) in my opening post.
I don’t understand where you want to take this now…
and please clairify the two premises…
hume himself admitted that one lives as if the inductive fallacy did not occur…
-Imp
Hey guys! Interesting thread. I know it’s out of date, but I followed it up from a newer thread that touched more lightly on the same topic.
So Hume’s problem of induction is pretty simply stated, I think, and is more or less as Obw stated early on in the thread.
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Using induction, we take a finite amount of data, and extrapolate from it an estimation of the probability of a similar future event. The sun has risen every day in recorded human history - therefore, it will almost certainly rise tomorrow.
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While this is a common practice, it is impossible to justify this sort of conclusion using logic alone.
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Therefore, since logic does not justify induction, induction must somehow be wrong.
This is the problem as Hume saw it, and while it is a problem in some sense, the solution is pretty simple. This universe doesn’t work on logic alone. It certainly works according to logic - but it has extra “axioms” thrown in. Logic does not demand the existence of atoms, but our universe has them anyway. Logic is an important cornerstone of our universe, but there is more to our universe than that - which is why there are mathematicians AND physicists - and among the physicists, there are theoretical physicists and applied physicists.
Essentially, induction is one of the extra axioms of our universe. You can’t use logic to prove induction - but it works anyway, in our universe (or at least inductively seems to)! You can easily imagine a (very confusing) universe in which, the more something happens, the less likely it is to happen again in a similar circumstance.
That seems all there is to it! Please let me know if you think any part of the problem of induction has been ill-explained or unresolved.
-Tristan
welcome to the boards…
the only problem with "You can’t use logic to prove induction - but it works anyway, in our universe (or at least inductively seems to)! " is that with this admission, the scientific method becomes an exersize in faith, no more than a religion…
-Imp
The problem is quite large, and it would require a clarification of terms first. But here’s my pin-pointed view.
Inductive reasoning is hazardous only when concerning empirical data taken alone, as with the example given by Twiffy, with the Sun being likely to rise everyday as it has unmistakenly did until now. Applied to empirical data considered apart, induction tends to reveal its fallacious side.
Induction has substance only with synthetical a priori judgements, though. And I guess it is wise to say that it is a reasonable application of the causality and community categories from Kant’s table. The inductive argument holds water only when its conclusions are taken as apodictical. If we consider the sun “as likely to appear tomorrow as it has done today”, then my take is that no induction has taken place here. Indeed, we know a certain phenomenon will take place based on certainty given by scientifical proofs. The sun will be tomorrow where it is today because we have observed its mass and physical properties and melded them with the pure branch of conceptual physics. One might say the two methods are basically the same (based on empirical observation) but in reality they are not - synthetical a priori judgements come in. So the real issue would be if these synthetical a priori judgements are possible and real.
I think this sentence isn’t clear - I mean:
“The only necessity that matters, is a logical necessity.” I.e. such a position ignores that there are other alternative types of necessity that govern our world.
To say that ball A did not cause ball B to move when they impacted is like saying that event did not cause the proposition “ball A did not cause ball B to move when they impacted.”
If the proposition is “true,” and propositions are derived from empirical conditions, and empirical conditions are causal, then propositions are causal and the induction fallacy is a chimera.
Let’s walk through it.
I say “I cannot prove that the sun will rise tomorrow,” and rightly so, but not because it is impossible to predict, but rather because it is impossible to be in the future and the present at the same time. When tomorrow comes and the sun rises, I will be before myself with the recollection of the comment I made yesterday (today), and say that my prediction was an induction fallacy.
Now substitute all the conditions involved in a rising sun (the sun, earth, rotation , axis, space, etc.) as “ball A” and the proposition “I cannot prove that the sun will rise tomorrow” as “ball B.”
Here the induction turns on itself. Regardless of the “waiting to verify” the truth later on, what allows for the possibility of the induction, indeed, everything one way or another involves an induction, is the causal necessity of the “empirical” events, those which are the world and the “epiphenomena” of the “mind.”
It cannot be said that “causality” exists…
That statement is nonsense…
For the above two quips to be correct or incorrect, there must be something that caused one or the other, for it certainly can’t be both and if it is one or the other it is because of an effect.
Causality is happening where it is being argued that causality doesn’t exist and a prediction is an induction fallacy.
But remember, we aren’t talking about “predictions” anymore because we know we cannot be in the future and the present at the same time. All we are concerned about is the causal nature of experience and the how it happens in time and space…with “things” here and there. If, as the empircists suspect, propositions are results of impressions of physical data, then they would most certainly be quantifiable and causal.
I don’t need to know what a electron is made of to know that it bumps into things. There are trajectories and momentums and other causal effects which dictate the movements. If only we knew the grand masta plan, if only we could see the dice, if only we could find a constant, all the little laws we have found would be justified and we would finally see the biggin.
Alright, try this, Imp. Say that the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow because the solar system shifts from a force or something, and there is twenty-four seconds where the laws as we knew them are in disorder. Gravity becomes weaker, magnetic fields change, cellular growth rates increase drastically, and the price of a number four at Jersey Mike’s Subs drops almost fifty percent.
Everything is screwed and Humeans everywhere are celebrating in a great magnificent non-causal induction fallacy-free orgy, where nobody makes promises and loves Megadeath.
But look closer, Imp. You are standing outside of the solar system in your space ship watching this happen for twenty-four seconds, where the laws as you knew them are in tact. Your ship generates the same gravity fields, the poles have not changed, your cells are aging at the same rate, and your number four is still soggy and extremely over-priced.
Here you notice that the justification for the disruption of the laws on earth are not universal in that they are only local, but also that they had to be caused by something.
Now let’s say that it was a energy flare that happened every few hundred years, and Newton, who just happen to have knowledge of this energy flare, also happened to place a bet with his contemporaries one day that while sitting under a tree an apple that came loose from the branch would not fall on his head, but instead, Newton himself, as well as his contemporaries, would fall upwards themselves.
Newton timed it so he would be under the tree for the twenty-four seconds of disruption.
The question is, was Newtons bet an induction fallacy if he knew in advance an event was determined to happen which would change the laws of physics as he knew them, but nonetheless be part of a larger set of laws, which his contemporaries knew nothing about?
Do you, Imp, standing in your space ship, with the capacity to travel back in time, disguise yourself and join the group with Newton at the tree, and place a bet against him? Probably not, now that you know Newton knows about the disruption.
Dammit! Now my theory won’t work. Nevermind.
Imp, thanks for the welcome.
You are absolutely correct to say that the Scientific Method is a matter of faith. “No more than religion” isn’t quite right, though - religion doesn’t accomplish anything tangible (it doesn’t make computers or cure diseases), but the scientific method does.
Here’s the gist of things. Math, humans, and universes all work in this way: they have fundamental axioms, rules that you assume, or that you begin with, but cannot in any sense prove. Then, there are deductions you make from these rules. “Theorems”, conclusions, etc. Essentially, you have to begin with some assumptions that are unprovable - there’s no way to truly start from nothing. Induction, in the sense of humans and in the sense of the universe, is one of these assumptions.
Mucius Scevola:
Unfortunately, there is no synthetic a priori component to induction at its most raw level. Any pure branch of conceptual physics, no matter how pure, has purely observational components behind it. Take Special Relativity, although any other area of physics would work just as well. Sure, physics uses pure math, and math is certainly synthetic a priori. But the assumptions of Special Relativity - its axioms, e.g. that light travels at the same speed in all reference frames - are not in the LEAST deducable from pure logic. Rather, Einstein wasn’t able to include this as an axiom until after the Michaelson-Morley experiment, which established the absolute-ness of the speed of light via observation and induction. One could easily imagine a universe in which the speed of light were different, or in which there WERE no cosmic speed limit.
I don’t think the problem is quite large at all, but I’m willing to be corrected.
as is existence
-Imp
(sigh) Hopefully you understand my meaning when I say that religion doesn’t accomplish anything tangible. Religion affects human motivation and human perception, but it doesn’t yield a new skill; it doesn’t have predictive power (despite all those who argue to the contrary), and it doesn’t have any scientific explanatory power (although it has plenty of non-scientific explanatory power).
The scientific method is NOT a logical error. Causality is not only something observable, it is something that can be precisely and mathematically (and thus philosophically) defined.
Even if the scientific method IS a logical error - which you will have a very very difficult time arguing - it STILL has given us more results than any other approach to knowledge and truth IN HISTORY. Almost every modern convenience we have now owes its existence in part to the scientific method.
Truth isn’t an assumed agreement. It has a precise definition in our universe. There are statements that are true or false independent of the observer. These are the statements that comprise the system of our universe.
“If you assume it is nothing, it is…”
I have no idea what you mean here. You need axioms (initial assumptions) to make any truth system work. If you have no axioms, you can’t have any conclusions.
And lastly… existence isn’t necessarily one of those assumptions at all. It really depends on what kind of existence you mean. Human existence is a consequence of those axioms, not an axiom itself. We can observe that humans exist, therefore they do. It’s more complicated than that, of course, but all you need do is fill in the gaps with the axioms of “Occam’s Razor” and “The Axiom of Induction” and so on, and you’re set.
only to be complicated by the axiom of errors…
-Imp
Incase you had not noticed, Imp is a radical skeptic. Although I somehow reckon you don’t live your life in tune with your philosophy, Imp.
ROFL
I would hope not.
I’ve been steadily checking this thread btw… I wish some other people would comment on this topic as, like ob 1 said initially… Induction is something that seems to hang onto attention and curiosity - a plague of contentment.
Sadly I’ve given it quite a bit of thought and I’m not analytical enough to dive into this metaphysical whirlpool and come out with anything readible.
So… yeah, pointless post here by me.
your initial discussion of premises and conclusion is actually both completely wrong, induction is a form of argumentation its parallel (or some would like it to be) to deduction. its a form of argumentation. Hume’s problem is that the form of argumentation maybe flawed that we mistakenly make the move from the paticular to the general, there is no logical necessity flowing from a finite set of observations to a general principle.
Personally I like Goodmans response to this issue, read Fact, Fiction and Forecast if you havn’t its short and provides a good insight on the subject.
Imp,
Your responses to most of my points suggest that you aren’t understanding them in the way in which I intended them.
For example, I never claimed that “mathematics are observed”, and if anywhere I said anything that could be related to that conjecture, it certainly wasn’t in the line you quoted, where I say that causality can be mathematically defined.
Perhaps we should call it a draw, eh, old boy?
Yes, exactly - and my opening post alleges that this problem rests (‘reduces to’) two very particular points as I outline - what do you think about them? .
call it a draw if you like, but I was highlighting the difference between observed empirical events and the metaphysical language and mathematical systems one uses to describe them. causality is defined, not observed.
-Imp
It was in some way my fault that I enlargened the spectre of induction beyond the delineated humean borders, to a point where, indeed, the border between two apparent different distinctions was unobservable.
It is wise, then, to mention between inductive reasoning, used in philosophy and logic, mathematical induction, electro-magnetic induction and the likes.
Let’s stick with Hume and his skepticism.
And your skepticism(s), for that matter.
I do not argue at the logical possibility of differently scaled universes, as general logics is not tangent in any strict way to the proper existence of things, but merely with the form and structure of any judgement . Possible is what concordes with the formal conditions of our experience. What limits possibilites is their materialization - real is what concordes with the material conditions of experience. (Kant)
But we are talking now of the world that we live in, as willing to offer itself to us as possible experience, a world where we have constructed the edifice of science, based on apodictical assertions (you may argue that, to no result, however). Mathematics is synthetic and a priori, therefore pure, and physics relies on experimental certainty and also deductive reasoning, interweaving itself with maths. As attractive as common folklore would appear, physics isn’t constructed merely by contemplating how apples fall from trees. For if experience teaches us laws that govern the existence of things, then these laws should apply outside our experience also.
Experience alone does not give us this privilege, though.
And this is where Kant and Hume bang head in head with each other. If we are to accept the unviolable universality of physics, then we must rely on a priorisms, which means bowing down to the spontaneity of our intellect in modelling the perceived world as according to its laws, by certain rules. It is only fair to acknowledge that, given the law of cause and effect and the principle of simultaneity by the law of reciprocal law that identical causes will cause symetrical effects. If, then, I perceived the sun rose up today at 6 or something and we know the trajectory it makes and the forces acting on it, then there’s no reason for me to doubt that it will be there tomorrow.
Or we could always call it “grue” and leave it to rest.