MichaelPhilip

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    Michael Kadada
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  1. I don't quite see the value (pardon the pun) in trying to discern whether the "value" of organisms' traits is "innate" or merely exists as a means to a greater end (e.g., survival). If you have a look at this paper: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7n17lxa8o9gqg1/Lammerts-OrganicPlantBreed-CropSci-2003.pdf?dl=0 you will notice that the author seems to use the concept of integrity in the sense that Rand attributed to Aristotle the concept of essence as a metaphysical formative principle. The creationists, when they talk about the impossibility of evolution, refer to "kinds," by which they mean something quite similar. It's all a variant of essentialism.
  2. Tara Smith in her book viable values says that: "Value is a function of the interaction between the thing called valuable and the person to whom it is valuable. Value is neither a static, pre-existing quality awaiting human discovery nor an arbitrary invention erected by the mere fact of one's desire or belief that a given object is valuable" Biologists regularly speak of the "survival value" of plant activities; thorns for example have survival value. These survival traits, though picked out by natural selection, are innate in the organism, that is, stored in its genes and expressed in structure and behavior. Doesn't this imply some sort of intrinsic value? On second thoughts, I am starting to think that intrinsic value is just another variant of essentialism
  3. We learn to ride a bike by trial and error. We need no explicit particular generalisation, or language of any sort, during learning to ride, nor that we need to recall when we go to ride in the future trial and error is the most basic form of induction. It is how we learn how to ride bikes and how we learn the grammar of the languages we are taught. Ba'al Chatzaf Induction is completely unknown as a real phenomenon so there isn't a "basic" form of it and all the suggested "variations" of what people who followed and still follow in that tradition, term "induction" (probabilistic induction to take just one example) don't pass the criticisms made of them. It remains a sealed-lips policy concerning the nature of this mysterious relation. Of course we do. A whole set of generalizations, in fact. Starting with causality, gestalts of different motor skills, etc. Here's a simple example. Under normal conditions, if a student applies the brakes, the bike will stop--all the time. Including all times in the future. If a time happens where the brakes don't stop the bike, this is an indication of an anomaly or malfunction and it needs fixing. It is not the new knowledge that brakes qua brakes only work part time. What are normal conditions? Brakes in proper working order. Environment suited to bike riding. Not too much more than that. Imagine the psychological state of a person who could only use trial and error every time he applied the brakes because he didn't know if they would stop or not. Pure fear. He would not be able to learn. Also, he actually does need to learn generalizations about where he goes when he rides. For example, under normal conditions, he does not ride a bike on top of a pond or lake. It will sink if he does that. All times in the future. It will never fail. So if he sees a large body of water, he knows he will sink if he tries to ride the bike on top of it. So he doesn't go there. In fact, he doesn't need to learn that one by trial and error, even as a kid, unless he is a dunderhead. Call that one the duh factor, but it's still induction. Michael Boys with bikes sometimes have brakes that work, and sometimes not. The 1950s fashion for the fixed wheel was instead of brakes. We stopped by means of the fixed wheel. But most of cycling seems to be tacit, even the repair processes. We did not usually talk when we learn to ride or when we experimented with our bikes. But we do learn by trial and error and we do not have any fear. Why should there be any fear? We do look at the bikes when we use them. We do nothing on faith or on only memory from the past. We check. I think you are right that we can tell that the water in a lake will not carry the bike without trying it out. We learn many things by sheer guesswork. I doubt if any child was ever surprised that fire burnt and was painful. They could guess that by looking at it. We make our generalisations but we do not find them. We impose them. But they can be the case in fact, even though we have not tested all possible examples. They are assumptions rather than inferences from research. Do you feel any of this begins to relate to the failed algorithm of induction? I do not. But it does relate to some of the things that authors on induction put into their books for padding.
  4. Michael, Be careful with "ist" and "ism" terminology. The only way to arrive at it is through induction. For some reason, induction-deniers always go ape on categorizing collectives when talking about people. And they defend their collectivist inductions to the death... Michael categorizing collectives? no, just being critical of the theories of induction put forth by those who claim that we practise induction or that somehow we would be lost without it. I notice that when they have no answer to the criticisms of their methods they resort to word games.
  5. We learn to ride a bike by trial and error. We need no explicit particular generalisation, or language of any sort, during learning to ride, nor that we need to recall when we go to ride in the future
  6. Michael well the inductivists have put forth many different variations of what they term "induction" and most of those variations have been sharply criticized and the errors in them pointed out. Nonetheless the inductivists just keep marching on pretending that we somehow rely on "induction" to gain new knowledge. The tradition is strong with those ones.
  7. yes you're quite grumpy No smugness on my part I assure you. on induction, does it really matter which type? Induction as justifying propositional inferences was shot down quite nicely by Hume, induction as mere enumeration was called "puerile" by Francis Bacon, induction as creating good concepts and definitions is problematic . Most, if not all, theories about the logic of induction have been refuted. People can dilute the content of any claim about induction such that it includes so much that it's true but not of much merit. Not saying that this what Baal was implying but its a point worth making. This pleading for induction seems to me like a crying out for order in a universe that is disinterested. I am pretty happy with guesswork. We encounter problems and apply our existent solutions which fail in detail and require modification or fresh guesses. Try as we may there is no way to be sure beforehand that our problem solving strategies will be effective. We hop on a bike for instance and the body and mind recalibrate their existing knowledge. Although we succeed in riding the bike there is no way we can avoid the possibility of a crash. Much of our learning from a priori knowledge is unconscious. Our way of dealing with the world is to guess (consciously or unconsciously) and test. There probably is room to talk about hierarchies in terms of how we guess: http://faculty.education.illinois.edu/g-cziko/wm/09.html#Heading6 But Induction is just a fancy name for guesswork and offers no inkling of the underlying processes.
  8. even with the bike, what you're describing here is just a process of conjectures and refutations. Induction has nothing to do with it.
  9. an immigrant originally but yeah i wouldn't mind someone calling me that
  10. I feel weird saying this, but in some ways I give Popper more credit than you seem to do. It is a gross oversimplification to say that Popper's objections to induction were the same as Hume's. Popper did more than reject Hume's epistemology; he rejected the theory of causation that was intimately linked to Hume's criticism of induction. As Popper wrote in "An Afterthought on Induction" (Objective Knowledge, p. 86): Despite his various objections to Hume's approach, Popper claims to have found in Hume "a gem of priceless value for the theory of objective knowledge; a simple, straightforward, logical refutation of any claim that induction could be a valid argument, or a justifiable way of reasoning." Now, what was this priceless gem? Popper (p. 86) writes: "Induction, Hume had shown, was invalid because it led to an infinite regress." The problem is that this was not Hume's argument. Hume contended that inductive reasoning involves circular reasoning, not an infinite regress. As he wrote in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , when we argue from past experience to what will occur in the future, we do so on the supposition that "the future will resemble the past," and this "must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question." (Selby-Bigge, 3rd ed., pp. 35-36.) The difference here is substantial, because if it can be show that belief in the uniformity of nature can be justified independently of any particular inductive inference (as I believe it can), then Hume's argument lacks force. Not so if inductive reasoning involves an infinite regress, as Popper contends. More needs to be said about this topic, obviously, but I want to do my best to avoid writing long and complex posts. In my experience people tend not to read such posts, or at least not read them very carefully. Ghs the infinite regress is pointed out by Hume as well, in his Treatise, Book 1, Part 3, Section 6.10): "Shou’d it be said, that we have experience, that the same power continues united with the same object, and that like objects are endow’d with like powers, I wou’d renew my question, why from this experience we form any conclusion beyond those past instances, of which we have had experience. If you answer this question in the same manner as the preceding, your answer gives still occasion to a new question of the same kind, even in infinitum; which clearly proves, that the foregoing reasoning had no just foundation." Popper tended to emphasize the infinite regress in his early writings; later the focus seemed to be more on circularity- circularity is the crux of the Popper-Miller theorem arguing against probabilistic induction for instance. But they're interchangeable in my humble opinion. Generally critical rationalists tend to lump the two together as horns of the Münchhausen trilemma.
  11. Hi everyone, I'm pretty excited to join this forum. I've been following some of the posts for quite some time, particularly the ones about Induction and some of George Smith's posts. I consider myself influenced by some Randian thoughts but more recently I've drifted in the direction of Hayek and Popper.