The Problem of Induction and The Axiom of Order

Jordan:

I'll give up soon. ;)

I'll believe it when I see it! LOL

Angry children break my windows.
I made some children angry.
Therefore they broke my windows.
- is just a string of premises with no clear connections.

I disagree, but don't wish to argue any more about it.

I axiomatized order.
I axiomitize that an evil demon exists and is controlling my every move. Now we're even. :-) <shakes his head>. That's just not my understanding of how axioms work in the Objectivist sense...or otherwise.

I can see that you understand this a different way that I do. When I present this material formally, I'll do my best to make it clear.

In order to repudiate either existents or order you are forced to employ them.
Maybe it'll help if you define "order" because several of us have shown how it can be rejected without assuming it ...

We're clearly going in circles now. Every objection you repeat in the balance of this post I have addressed several times.

Much as it's tempting to keep slogging, I think it best that we give it a rest.

But be assured that I will reconsider every word you wrote in this post and others when I put together a more organized presentation. Both you and Daniel have given a lot of effort to this discussion. Thanks!

(By my estimates we have 30-40,000 words invested in this thread!)

Nathan Hawking

Post 121

Friday, June 10, 2005 - 11:54pm

Nathan:
>Daniel, it was kind of you to type all that. I will consider and make use of that material when I present my thoughts on this in a more organized and formal way. Thanks.

No problem. I have been around internet debates long enough to not expect to persuade you! Believe me, it took a while for me to accept Popper's conclusions - I was originally more interested in his epistemology. It's also a really big topic, with major implications including the rise of irrationalism in the 21st century. But hey, at least you know its out there...;-)

- Daniel

Post 122

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 12:21am

Daniel:

No problem. I have been around internet debates long enough to not expect to persuade you!

I just ran across this quote from J.K. Galbraith:

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof."

I try to make it my intellectual business to avoid being like "almost everybody." But I imagine it looks like I, too, am just "busy on the proof." LOL

Nathan

Post 123

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 5:38am

Please, please make it go away...

Post 124

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 7:32am

Okay Nathan. I await your more organized presentation.

-Jordan

Post 125

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 3:33pm

Jennifer writes:
>Please, please make it go away...

Hi Jennifer

I know the feeling...;-) And I am the first to admit the above debate is hardly the greatest in the history of philosophy! But then - does it need to be? We're just a bunch of amateurs struggling with quite a famous philosophical problem with important implications. I think it's not been too bad so far.

I know the "problem of induction" sounds pretty dull, or perhaps trivial. That's what the guy who discovered it, David Hume, concluded too. But, as it turns out, without this particular problem, an obscure Prussian scholar called Immanuel Kant would simply have remained an obscure Prussian scholar, lost in the slumbers of history. Of course, without Kant's influence, a later novelist/philosoper called Ayn Rand would have found herself with little necessity of forming a counter-philosophy, and might have just stuck to screenwriting instead! So it is kinda important after all.

Can you tell me: were you aware of the above? If not, I guess you can now understand why we were bothering to discuss it, if rather poorly.

- Daniel

Post 126

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 6:32pm

Take no notice, Jennifer. There's no problem at all except in the tortured minds of those who won't stop talking for long enough to hear *why* there's no problem. You should stay away from threads like these, lest the morbid madness thereon be contagious. :-) I just popped on 'cos I saw your name here.

Linz

Post 127

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 6:41pm

Heh, scared you, did I Linz? :)

Daniel, to be clear, I understand why it's important, but after reading much of this thread I see the conversation going in circles, so either agree to disagree or solve the damned questions. :)

Post 128

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 8:41pm

Jennifer:

I understand why it's important, but after reading much of this thread I see the conversation going in circles...

For what it's worth, I'll go in circles so long as each go-around yields something of value to me - however obscure to others.

But the last time produced nothing obviously new, and I'm fatigued with the topic for now. Even the Nathanator has its limits.

NH

Post 129

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 11:00pm

Linz:
>There's no problem at all except in the tortured minds of those who won't stop talking for long enough to hear *why* there's no problem.

Hi Linz,

I'm not keen to prolong this thread, but I can't let you tantalise all our poor tortured minds with your solution and not have you reveal it!

I've stopped talking. So has the Nathantor, Jordan et al.

So the floor is all yours: *why* is there "no problem"?

- Daniel

Post 130

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 7:14am

Jennifer and Linz,

Sorry - I can't resist. Can you all imagine what will happen when these people discover Fred Seddon?

//;-O

Michael

Post 131

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 10:30am

ROFL!

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 2:04pm

MSK wrote:
>Sorry - I can't resist. Can you all imagine what will happen when these people discover Fred Seddon?

Jennifer replied:
>ROFL!

Well, now *I*can't resist...;-)

Michael, Jennifer - given that "these people" (ie: me, Jordan, Nathan etc) are obviously very foolish to be interested this chucklesome topic, perhaps you might be kind enough to explain where we're going wrong.

Thanks.

- Daniel

Post 133

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 2:29pm

Daniel,

To be clear, it is not the topic at which I am chuckling. :) It is simply amusing to me how some threads on here can climb to 300+ posts without reaching a resolution.

No offense is intended.

Jennifer

Post 134

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 3:05pm

J.I. wrote: To be clear, it is not the topic at which I am chuckling. :) It is simply amusing to me how some threads on here can climb to 300+ posts without reaching a resolution.

Minds are big ships with small rudders.

NH

Post 135

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 3:22pm

Jennifer:
>It is simply amusing to me how some threads on here can climb to 300+ posts without reaching a resolution.

I guess the problem is 200-odd years old. So in light of that, 120-odd posts ain't too bad...;-)

>No offense is intended.

None taken, just if someone - maybe Michael? - has a better solution than Hume's (he does seemed to have solved the problem, just in the negative) it would be interesting to hear it.

Otherwise, what NH said.

- Daniel

Post 136

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 3:37pm

Nathan,
Fortunately, in the last 2,500 years some superlative navigators have manned the helm. Without them, most of us would likely be lost at sea.

Post 137

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 4:16pm

Don't be so sensitive, Daniel! You wrote:

Michael, Jennifer - given that "these people" (ie: me, Jordan, Nathan etc) are obviously very foolish...

You got it wrong. Not foolish. (I will keep you in suspense about what I really think...) But if you like, I will loan you my handkerchief to wipe away the tears. //;-)

About induction, Nathan and I have not discussed that, but we have discussed axiomatic concepts (we disagree on some fundamentals) and this manner you all do of discussing things in posts that include a deluge of nonessential information highlighted by extensive quotes from immediately before.

The problem of dissecting induction is related to the way you approach axiomatic concepts - actually to concept formation in itself. As Nathan, the last time we talked about it, holds that perceptions are not really percepts, but some sort of primitive concepts instead, and that integration is some kind of idea, but we did not cover it too well back then, especially as he preferred to add an axiomatic concept of organization that he came up with instead - plus an anthropological definition of man, we never got around to induction. I tried to follow all this, but it kept getting side-tracked onto non-essentials (like bringing in the Catholic church in the middle of discussing what man is and things like that), and then there were those damn candy-stripped quotes from before - so I gave up.

All that seriously gets in the way of any contribution I might have - I go brain dead before I can even get to what is really being said (but I do find the topics in themselves interesting).

The person I mentioned, Fred Seddon, likes this kind of discussion and if you want to talk Hume, he's the man. He reads this stuff 24/7 for pleasure and knows it like the back of his hand. Look him up. He posts here and has written articles for Solo (especially on Kant and Plato). He calls himself the Kantinator.

It was a humorous comment, but it was also serious.

But hey. If you guys like that sort of discourse, don't let me stand in your way. Go for it and be happy. In Brazil, they say you can't learn taste. You can only refine it.

Michael

Post 138

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 4:28pm

Jeff:

Indeed. I'd hate like hell to be starting from scratch.

NH

Post 139

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 4:46pm