There’s more than one problem of induction. Bayesian theory doesn’t tell you anything about the ontological question, what makes the future resemble the past, and it only answers the epistemological question probablistically.
Yeah, exactly. Bayesian theory is built on top of an assumption of regularity, not the other way around. If some malicious genie purposefully screwed with your observations, Bayesian theory would crash and burn. Heck, the classic “inductivist turkey” would have very high Bayesian belief in his chances of living past Christmas.
I find the questions of “how and when can you apply induction” vastly more interesting than the “why it works” question. I am more of a “this is a weird trick which works sometimes, how and when does it apply?” kind of guy.
Bayesianism is probably the strongest argument for the “it works” part I can provide: here are the rules you can use to predict future events. Easily falsifiable by applying the rules, making a prediction and observing the outcomes. All wrapped up in an elegant axiomatic framework.
[The answer is probabilistic because the nature of the problem is (unless you possess complete information about the universe, which coincidentally makes induction redundant).]
I find the questions of “how and when can you apply induction” vastly more interesting than the “why it works” question.
Maybe you are personally not interested in the philosophical aspects, …but then why say that Bayes fully answers them, when it doesn’t and you don’t care anyway?
Bayesian probability theory fully answers this question from a philosophical point of view
The answer is probabilistic because the nature of the problem is
Says who? For a long time, knowledge was associated with certainty.
The post I commented on is about a justification of induction (unless I have commited some egregious misreading, which is a surprisingly common error mode of mine, feel free to correct me on this part).
It seemed natural for me that I would respond with linking the the strongest justification I know—although again, might have misread myself into understanding this differently from what words were written.
[This is basically the extent to which I mean that the question is resolved; I am conceding on ~everything else.]
It sounds like they are simply suggesting I accept the principle of uniformity of nature as an axiom.
Although I agree that this is the crux of the issue, as it has been discussed for decades, it doesn’t really address the points I aim to urge the reader to consider.
If the reader values having solutions to the philosophical issues as well as the practical ones, how are you going to change their mind? It’s just a personal preference.
Why would I want to change a person’s belief if they already value philosophical solutions? I think people should value philosophical solutions. I value them.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your question.
It seemed like the poster above stated they do not value philosophical solutions. The paper isn’t really aimed at converting a person that doesn’t value ‘the why’ into a person that does. It is aimed at people which already do care about ‘the why’ and are looking to further reinforce/challenge their beliefs about what induction is capable of doing.
The principle of uniformity of nature is something we need to assume if we are going to declare we have evidence that the tenth swan to come out of the box would be white (in the situation where we have a box of ten swans and have observed 9 of them come out of the box and be white). Hume successfully convinced me that this can’t be done without assuming the principle of uniformity in nature.
What I am claiming though, is that although we have no evidence to support the assertion ‘The 10th swan will be white.’ we do have evidence to support the assertion ‘All ten swans in the box will be white.’ (an assertion made before we opened the box.). This justification is not dependent upon assuming the principle of uniformity of nature.
In general, it is a clarification specifically about what induction is capable of producing justification for.
Future observation instances? No.
But general statements? I think this is plausible.
It’s really just an inquiry into what counts as justification.
There’s more than one problem of induction. Bayesian theory doesn’t tell you anything about the ontological question, what makes the future resemble the past, and it only answers the epistemological question probablistically.
Yeah, exactly. Bayesian theory is built on top of an assumption of regularity, not the other way around. If some malicious genie purposefully screwed with your observations, Bayesian theory would crash and burn. Heck, the classic “inductivist turkey” would have very high Bayesian belief in his chances of living past Christmas.
I find the questions of “how and when can you apply induction” vastly more interesting than the “why it works” question. I am more of a “this is a weird trick which works sometimes, how and when does it apply?” kind of guy.
Bayesianism is probably the strongest argument for the “it works” part I can provide: here are the rules you can use to predict future events. Easily falsifiable by applying the rules, making a prediction and observing the outcomes. All wrapped up in an elegant axiomatic framework.
[The answer is probabilistic because the nature of the problem is (unless you possess complete information about the universe, which coincidentally makes induction redundant).]
Maybe you are personally not interested in the philosophical aspects, …but then why say that Bayes fully answers them, when it doesn’t and you don’t care anyway?
Says who? For a long time, knowledge was associated with certainty.
The post I commented on is about a justification of induction (unless I have commited some egregious misreading, which is a surprisingly common error mode of mine, feel free to correct me on this part). It seemed natural for me that I would respond with linking the the strongest justification I know—although again, might have misread myself into understanding this differently from what words were written.
[This is basically the extent to which I mean that the question is resolved; I am conceding on ~everything else.]
It sounds like they are simply suggesting I accept the principle of uniformity of nature as an axiom.
Although I agree that this is the crux of the issue, as it has been discussed for decades, it doesn’t really address the points I aim to urge the reader to consider.
If the reader values having solutions to the philosophical issues as well as the practical ones, how are you going to change their mind? It’s just a personal preference.
Why would I want to change a person’s belief if they already value philosophical solutions? I think people should value philosophical solutions. I value them.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your question.
It seemed like the poster above stated they do not value philosophical solutions. The paper isn’t really aimed at converting a person that doesn’t value ‘the why’ into a person that does. It is aimed at people which already do care about ‘the why’ and are looking to further reinforce/challenge their beliefs about what induction is capable of doing.
The principle of uniformity of nature is something we need to assume if we are going to declare we have evidence that the tenth swan to come out of the box would be white (in the situation where we have a box of ten swans and have observed 9 of them come out of the box and be white). Hume successfully convinced me that this can’t be done without assuming the principle of uniformity in nature.
What I am claiming though, is that although we have no evidence to support the assertion ‘The 10th swan will be white.’ we do have evidence to support the assertion ‘All ten swans in the box will be white.’ (an assertion made before we opened the box.). This justification is not dependent upon assuming the principle of uniformity of nature.
In general, it is a clarification specifically about what induction is capable of producing justification for.
Future observation instances? No.
But general statements? I think this is plausible.
It’s really just an inquiry into what counts as justification.
Necessary or sufficient evidence.