New View On Induction - I'm Against Hume.

[Rortabend]

Will you please stop telling me to reread your thread? I am perfectly aware what you are trying to show. However, the problem of induction isn't as easy as you seem to think. You can either accept that there are problems with using 'lawfulness' to defend induction (see Hume) or just ignore them. If you just ignore them then I'm afraid there isn't much to recommend your 'solution'.

If you doubt what I say then please take a look at any textbook treatment of the problem of induction (see, for example, What is this thing called Science? by Chalmers). In these books you will find 'lawfulness' as one of the responses to the problem. The book will then show you why this doesn't work (or at least why you need to do more that just point to the lawfulness of nature).

Let me stress that I am not just being difficult or argumentative for its own sake. There are other solutions to the problem of induction which have more to recommend them. I favour the externalist solution.

[Aetixintro]

I think I've already pointed out that we interpret "lawfulness", "laws of nature", differently, very differently. I take it to be the necessary structures of nature, the necessary connections of nature. I guess you take it to be some kind of applied science, like physics. It seems we're stuck here, in discussing.

[Rortabend]

OK. So we disagree on what consitutes lawfulness. Let's assume that if your necessary connections can be shown to exist then this solves the problem of induction. So the question is over the existence of these necessary connections. You think you have shown this but I don't see an argument for this anywhere in your writings. You can't solve philosophical problems with ex cathedra proclamations! If you have an argument for the necessary connects then let's see it. If I have missed it in your writings I apologise. Please cut and paste it in your reply.

[Aetixintro]

There are no ex cathedra proclamations (except the instance of "Finito") in any of what I write! I've never been thinking that when in "a single span of time, instance" I make certain considerations of nature that I would have to defend the "necessary connections in nature" (I therefore used "Finito" because I've been thinking I've been justified in literature and blatantly so. This may be mistaken in my approach, I'm sorry!). One note: If I consider this "single span of time, instance" to each "kind" of separate "happening" in nature, I claim that I still escape the induction. Alright, (when being in "a single span of time, instance") 1. I exist in the world, I see colours, substance and an incredible number of impressions, 2. I have this body I can feel and I can use it to feel the external world, 3. My body doesn't explode, but is perfectly whole through this time-frame, 4. What I see in this scenery (which may be all sorts) are patterns that I can relate to just as my body, there are no objects emerging in thin air, no sudden levitation, there's calmness and persistent objects, 5. Am I surprised in this environment? Basically not! The balls roll on the pool table when they are being moved, I sense, feel other people when I'm being touched and I feel objects against my body when I touch them, lean on them, lie on them and so on, I also sense gravity as I raise myself from the floor or bench, I sense gravity when I drop a Billiard-ball to the floor or on the pool table. Depending on your "first" "single span of time, instance" as a cognising mind and according to circumstances, there are therefore numerous instances you can draw from it. Your body is whole! It doesn't levitate. It doesn't rupture as such! The arm doesn't loosen from it and floats off in the air. You can breathe! You feel hungry! You discover you can eat! You can feel your stomach being filled! Unnecessary to say, perhaps, I think Merleau-Ponty's "Primacy of Perception" is the kind of angle I'm thinking about. The conclusion is that there are many inferences to make in "a single span of time, instance" when considering "necessary connections in nature". Although perceptions and cognitions may be very naive in the beginning, they uncover incredibly much from those instances not normally thought about because nature appears natural. Consistency and coherency are very important features of our minds, but how often do we consider it, even when we think of what we've thought? Surely unusual considerations, but they break down induction! (Finito! )

So excellent we could clear this up! Thanks!

[Aetixintro]

I've worked some more on explication. This time on Lawfulness.
From my website, http://www.t-lea.net/philosophical_notes.html:

Comment on Lawfulness. With lawfulness, it's presumed that your set of observations complies and is exhaustive for all conditions this lawfulness concerns. This means that your set in your span of time, instance, is complete to the degree that information overall in reality is contained and is complete in this span of time, instance.

There should be good chance as I've been regarding it (the argument) that it begins to hold some strength. Good!

[Aetixintro]

"When I go to bed tonight, I can definitely rely on wakening up tomorrow without induction! It's the "lawfulness" of nature that is this way! In any case, it's the same "lawfulness" that is going to prevent me from wakening up tomorrow if anything! Thus "lawfulness" is on both sides (of the available two sides) of the situation."

Some words have been added to this writing and it should now really clinch the argument! Enjoy!

Cheers!

[chaz wyman]

Thanks, Wootah
When I write that each instant is sufficient in themselves very opposite to Hume's view, I mean that we are affected by a combination of natural laws that are necessarily continuous and coherent.

Where do you get that from- faith???


This is exactly opposite to Hume and his notion that our experience of nature is just a habit or custom. Clearly, I argue differently. So be it, I don't have the time right now to make this whole. I'll be back. Cheers!

I'm not sure you have 'argued' it exactly. You have stated it is wrong, but that is another matter.

Edit: I think there is an example of a person putting a book in a drawer in Hume's writings. According to Hume then, we have no reason to believe that the book is in the drawer the next time we enter the office.

He doesn't say that. He said we do have a reason for it based on habit.

This is counter to my views of the necessarily continuous and coherent because I believe that just this instance is enough to make us believe that the book is still there unless there are conditions that can make it otherwise. The history of our minds show that it's impossible to change as a person from one instant to another.

But Hume also thinks as you do that the persistence of the object is a fact. All he is doing is to invite us to consider that a skeptical possibility exists that circumstances might have altered the case.


The continuity of the mind is bound to move forwards in time. We reason through the seasons and the years and it can't be otherwise. The mind is forced to be that history. I think the nature follows in similar fashion. More later!

Here I am again (I don't bother to make a new post)!
Some more from Philosophyforums.
I want to make myself clear. (To mix me up with "Hume's Custom or Habit" in this thread is absolutely wrong!)

Factors
1. Consistency and coherency (deduced from Descartes' Meditations)
2. The sum of natural laws (the usual consideration of our beings in nature)
3. Logics and mathematics are necessary aspects of nature and our minds (I hold the view that logics and mathematics are for real in a variety of senses)

4. The factors of 1. through 3. bridge our experience from one instant to the next and so on. Forever?

5. Point beside: 1. through 4. refute, in my opinion, "Hume's Custom or Habit", the problem of induction.

I'm absolutely killing "Hume's Custom or Habit". As it says, I'm against Hume on this.

This schema can be used in every instance of the universe.

Examples (I'll provide two):
The book in the drawer example. We are in an office. We put a book in a drawer. We go out of the office. We go out of the house. We go out of the laboratory (a little bit unusual, a whole house in a laboratory). We wait 24 hrs (partying, binge drinking, whatever). We go back into the laboratory. We go into the house. We go into the office. We look into the drawer and there is our book. We can be absolutely certain of this in the first instance from my argument. In this example, we discount natural disasters, ie. big meteors landing on the laboratory and so on. We also discount any dishonest activity in this regard.

The sun rising the next morning example. We have a fabulous day and enjoy life. We go to bed in the evening and we expect the sun to rise the next morning. In this, we make the following inference. Our Sun in our solar system is not about to die, exploding and consuming earth, ceasing to support life on earth. We don't know of any threatening meteors on the verge to devastate life on earth. The earth keeps its path and tilting pattern because there is nothing there to prevent this. We live in relative safety as we are outside earthquake zones and dubious neighbourhoods. (Added: ) We are also not threatened by global nuclear war. We wake up in the morning to a clear, blue sky and a beautiful sunrise. This sunrise is absolutely certain this day, Sept. 18. 2009. We can be absolutely certain of this in the first instance from my argument.

Edit: Instead of making the direct predictions, I think it's worthwhile to ask oneself of what there is that can be different. Why should the nature be otherwise? Then you can make the predictions.

[Aetixintro]

Philosophy Bites with Helen Beebee on "Laws of Nature":http://philosophybites.com/2010/12/hele ... ature.html. This touches directly on this theme of David Hume. I've made a comment to it (eventually approved or not by the PB-moderator):
"My view is that "laws of nature" in this context are more easily sorted out if you use "lawfulness" and to this you still need your thoughts to come in a row and life be allowed to live. It's also a recommendation of mine that one doesn't mix "laws of nature" and what these laws of nature are supposed to be because it quickly gets incredibly complicated and one is still discussing the status of "laws of nature" in Phil. of Science as a separate theme, thus underlining the complexity of this issue! Lastly it should be noted that Helen Beebee points to "necessary connections of nature" in a sentence that really takes out David Hume on this. Thanks for the podcast!" [Edit:] Now it seems approved, afterall.

It should be noted that Philosophy Bites remains a fine access point to people interested in Philosophy by casual terms.

[Edit:] Further to the argument, by myself. What are these examples of nature supposed to mean then when we walk around in nature and discover them, classically speaking by induction? By this induction-free thinking, it's simply the "lawfulness"/"law of nature" that this nature is ABLE to produce this impression, this fact of animal or facet of nature! This is an interpretation of "law of nature" that is very wide and loose, but I think it should be allowed (and valid) to formulate "laws of nature" this way! [End of edit. This further clinches my angle to induction, my argument!]

Cheers!