Induction
I didn’t understand the problem of inducing a day in short. Well, it’s not necessary that because the sun rose today, it will also shine tomorrow, but it is very, very likely, close to 100%, and as you always say, probability (and not necessity) is also great, so what’s the problem?
Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I didn't understand the 2nd. This "reasonable" comes from my mind, it is logical to say that if the sun rose yesterday it will rise today, it has nothing to do with habit. In short
Isn't it just your habit? Answer: No, it's my logic. There is no problem here
You can say anything about anything. Saying nothing solves nothing.
Induction is your way of thinking without observing the world. This thinking is a product of the way you are built. Therefore, it is not important that it is logical. The question is what is the connection between your logic and the way the world works? We are also afraid of the night for no reason, and we are also afraid of heights for no reason (even when there are safe fences). What is inherent in us does not in any way indicate the nature of the world (Yom raised his questions long before the discovery of evolution, although it does not solve the problem either).
This is not a problem of induction but a problem of projection.
And the solution to the problem is simple, all you have to do is internalize the following sentence:
Just because you think and believe that something will happen does not mean that it will.
Once you internalize this, there will be no problem.
Rabbi, I didn't understand something. By definition, induction is an argument that is not valid, but strong. And the problem with induction says, "Oh, wait a minute, I have a problem, you can't rely on induction because it's not valid." But that's right! That's its definition, so what's the problem??
And just for the record, is "inference" in Talmudic terminology (not in the sense of a property but in the sense of what is once true is always true, such as "Tev Lamitav Tan Du") actually exactly induction?
The problem is not that it is invalid, but that it is baseless (illogical). Furthermore, even if you define induction as invalid, it does not make it something that can be trusted. You can give any illogical argument a name. So now can it be accepted?
The Talmud is not exempt from the difficulties of general logical and philosophical claims.
I asked, the fact that intuition has worked in the past ("empirical confirmation from the history of science") is no guarantee that it will work in the future!
And you told me "The claim that the past proves that intuition is reliable. Successes show that this ability we have is not just arbitrary and success is not accidental. The claim that something inside us has changed since then is implausible."
(We will continue here because I don't need to exclude images again)
How many times in the book True and Unstable, and in two carts, you have brought up the fact that the sun has always shone does not constitute a reason why it will shine tomorrow (= the problem of induction, what was is not necessarily what will be). What is the difference between that and what you said now?
In other words, what you wrote to substantiate intuition, "the claim that the past proves that intuition is reliable (and therefore can be relied upon)," is itself based on intuition.
This is what Yom asks, and my answer is that intuitively it is clear to us that this is indeed true, and intuition is a type of recognition. Now we ask what is the justification? How did this happen? Because of God.
Regarding intuition, it is clear that it is impossible to answer the question of how intuition is reliable without using intuition. We have no other tool. You could talk about second-order intuition and continue to infinite regression, but I prefer the formulation that it attacks itself. This is self-evident.
The fact is that for Yom these arguments were not enough, because he did not accept God as the source of this reliability.
Is the problem of induction based on the fallacy of inference (inferring the premise of a conditional sentence given its conclusion), or is it another problem on the way to verifying a scientific theory?
Absolutely. The cases can be derived from the theory by logical deduction (this is Karl Hempel's deductive-nomological scheme), but the theory cannot be derived from the cases.
But like any logical fallacy, it only means that the argument is not logically necessary, but not that it is not true, or even that it is implausible.
Therefore, Popper states that a theory cannot be proven, only refuted. If one case does not fit, then the theory is invalid. This is the negation of the conclusion (modus tollens), which is indeed a valid argument.
If I understand correctly, then the problem of induction includes, among others:
That it doesn't make sense to rely on a collection of cases that I've seen, because maybe I haven't seen everything
That even if a collection of cases made sense, it wouldn't mean anything at all if the conclusion is positive
Right?
True. But it's not that it doesn't mean anything, it's just that it doesn't necessarily mean the conclusion.
Do you know Uri Belkind from Tel Aviv University? Do you know about his solution to the induction problem, which he called Newtonian transduction?
I don't know.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer