David Harriman's Book

[Brant Gaede]

I vote for the dog is attacking the shadow...and I know that I am right!

Adam,

Very likely.

My vote is the dog is doing a mix of things, attacking and teaching.

But the kid is still jumping, so regardless of what the dog is doing, he is learning by imitation (the play kind).

Michael

The dog is playing with the boy by playing with the shadow. He knows he can't jump on the boy.

--Brant

(the superior interpretation)

[merjet]

I vote for the dog is attacking the shadow...and I know that I am right!

I have some doubt. The dog appears to be jumping around the shadow, not on it.

The dog's motion is similar to this fox's, but that's no help to me.

[Selene]

I vote for the dog is attacking the shadow...and I know that I am right!

I have some doubt. The dog appears to be jumping around the shadow, not on it.

The dog's motion is similar to this fox's, but that's no help to me.

Good observation.

"attacking" was a poor word choice...

I enjoy playing with animals with a red dot beam from a device or pen...I had an article that explained what they "see."

The cats for example will attempt to "trap" the red dot with their paw and appear surprised when the dot somehow escapes. Additionally, there is no "tactility" when they "trap" the red dot.

I have to look for that article.

A...

[Ellen Stuttle]

Contrary to seeing this from one end of Rand's razor, that "concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity," I see the entire history of this debate (what I know of it so far, that is) from the other end, that concepts are not "to be integrated in disregard of necessity."

That end of Rand's razor was the end I referenced:

[bold emphasis added]

I'm not unsympathetic to your aversion to academic discourse. I agree that plenty of game-playing goes on. Nonetheless - and in keeping with Rand on this point - I think that concepts shouldn't be integrated in disregard of necessity, and that your usage has the unfortunate result of conflating phenomena which differ in ways important to categorize differently.

Ellen,

The problem I have with this whole discussion is the term "propositional logic" and using that to stake some kind of claim to exclusivity of standard for knowledge. Not that I am against logic.

[....] I think Rand saw this problem and that's why she used induction and deduction as as a way of thinking for building concepts, not just as propositional logic.

I think that the way to have gone with it, instead of using traditional terminology but meaning something different from traditional meanings, was to use different terminology. By using traditional terminology but meaning something different by it than traditional usage, what's produced is confusion and arguing at cross-purposes - such as happens regularly on this board. I think at minimum if Rand was going to use "deduction" and "induction" as she did in that sentence, she should have explained that she had some more-inclusive meaning in mind than standard usage.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen, regarding the Rand quotation in #321:

I imagine Rand was finessing a long-standing Aristotelian tradition concerning induction in that passage.

Stephen,

I think that if that was what she was doing, she should have said something to indicate as much - and I'm doubtful that she was so well-versed in Aristotelian thought as to have been doing what you indicate.

Notice that in the epistemology workshop - the only place induction is described in her work - she's talking about a standard meaning of forming a universal law. She doesn't mention "intuitive induction" there in specifying "THE problem of induction," but maybe that's because of the particular question which was asked.

Thanks for the material from Dougherty.

Ellen

[BaalChatzaf]

There is more than one mode of induction.

There is induction from particulars to what is most likely to be seen next.

There is induction from effects to the likely cause of the effects

Induction is disciplined and plausible guesswork. The type of induction used is determined by what is to be guessed.

Ba'al Chatzaf