Since “no one believes that induction is the sole source of scientific explanations”, and we understand that scientific theories win by improving on their competitors in compactness, then the Problem of Induction that Russell perceived is a non-problem. That’s my claim. It may be an obvious claim, but the LW sequences didn’t seem to get it across.
You seem to be saying that induction is relevant to curve fitting. Sure, curve fitting is one technique to generate theories, but tends to be eventually outcompeted by other techniques, so that we get superseding theories with reductionist explanations. I don’t think curve fitting necessarily needs to play a major role in the discussion of dissolving the Problem of Induction.
Sure, curve fitting is one technique to generate theories,
I am saying that prediction is valuable per se, that curve fitting gives you predictions, and that curve fitting is induction, and that induction is therefore needed in spite of Deutschs argument.
Induction is also important for eveyday reasoning.
If you think of a theory as something that does nothing but make predictions, then induction is generating theories...but it is s not an explanatorytheory, in terms of the standard explanatory/ empirical distinction.
Unfortunately, the belief that theories can be losslessly represented as programmes elides the distinction.
Just because curve fitting is one way you can produce a shallow candidate model to generate your predictions, that doesn’t mean “induction is needed” in the original problematic sense, especially considering that what’s likely to happen is that a theory that doesn’t use mere curve fitting will probably come along and beat out the curve fitting approach.
If you assume that all science is theoretical, and/or you have endless time to generate the perfect theory , that is true.
But neither assumption is true.
Induction is vital for practical purposes. If your world is being ravaged by a disease , you need to understand its progression ahead of having a full theory. Our ancestors needed to understand that the berry that made you sick yesterday will make you sick today...and to do that well ahead of having a theory of biochemistry.
Inductive reasoning is important for survival, not just for relative luxuries like science.
Curve fitting isn’t Problematic. The reason it’s usually a good best guess that points will keep fitting a curve (though wrong a significant fraction of the time) is because we can appeal to a deeper hypothesis that “there’s a causal mechanism generating these points that is similar across time”. When we take our time and do actual science on our universe, our theories tell us that the universe has time-similar causal structures all over the place. Actual science is what licenses quick&dirty science-like heuristics.
Youre subsuming the epistemic problem of induction under the ontologcal problem of induction, but you haven’t offered a solution to the ontologcal problem of induction.
Edit:
How do you know that the world is stable? Effect has followed cause in the past, but stability means that it will also do so in the future..but to think that it will do so in the future because it has done so in the past is inductive reasoning.
Since “no one believes that induction is the sole source of scientific explanations”, and we understand that scientific theories win by improving on their competitors in compactness, then the Problem of Induction that Russell perceived is a non-problem. That’s my claim. It may be an obvious claim, but the LW sequences didn’t seem to get it across.
You seem to be saying that induction is relevant to curve fitting. Sure, curve fitting is one technique to generate theories, but tends to be eventually outcompeted by other techniques, so that we get superseding theories with reductionist explanations. I don’t think curve fitting necessarily needs to play a major role in the discussion of dissolving the Problem of Induction.
I am saying that prediction is valuable per se, that curve fitting gives you predictions, and that curve fitting is induction, and that induction is therefore needed in spite of Deutschs argument.
Induction is also important for eveyday reasoning.
If you think of a theory as something that does nothing but make predictions, then induction is generating theories...but it is s not an explanatorytheory, in terms of the standard explanatory/ empirical distinction.
Unfortunately, the belief that theories can be losslessly represented as programmes elides the distinction.
Just because curve fitting is one way you can produce a shallow candidate model to generate your predictions, that doesn’t mean “induction is needed” in the original problematic sense, especially considering that what’s likely to happen is that a theory that doesn’t use mere curve fitting will probably come along and beat out the curve fitting approach.
If you assume that all science is theoretical, and/or you have endless time to generate the perfect theory , that is true.
But neither assumption is true.
Induction is vital for practical purposes. If your world is being ravaged by a disease , you need to understand its progression ahead of having a full theory. Our ancestors needed to understand that the berry that made you sick yesterday will make you sick today...and to do that well ahead of having a theory of biochemistry.
Inductive reasoning is important for survival, not just for relative luxuries like science.
Curve fitting isn’t Problematic. The reason it’s usually a good best guess that points will keep fitting a curve (though wrong a significant fraction of the time) is because we can appeal to a deeper hypothesis that “there’s a causal mechanism generating these points that is similar across time”. When we take our time and do actual science on our universe, our theories tell us that the universe has time-similar causal structures all over the place. Actual science is what licenses quick&dirty science-like heuristics.
Youre subsuming the epistemic problem of induction under the ontologcal problem of induction, but you haven’t offered a solution to the ontologcal problem of induction.
Edit:
How do you know that the world is stable? Effect has followed cause in the past, but stability means that it will also do so in the future..but to think that it will do so in the future because it has done so in the past is inductive reasoning.