Objectifish

Induction has a problem. It is possible for an assertion be be true of a large number of instances and yet be false for the entire class from which the instances are taken. In short, inductive inference is not logically valid. True premises do not guarantee a true conclusion.

The classical example. One billion swans lately seen are white therefore all swans are white. Whoops. A black swan was spotted in Australia. Do you see the problem.

In the case of deduction with a valid deduction true premises MUST yield a true conclusion. The rules of -deductive- logic are truth value preserving.

Inductive logic lacks necessity. There is no guarantee that the next item observed will conform to the inductively generated generalization.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al, if you're going to persist in this, you really need to read Groarke's book. I guarantee he will not only challenge your perspective, but will give you a very interesting read. He is a very clear thinker, considering the difficulty of the issue.

In the meantime, here is how he addresses the "black swan" issue. He devotes two different passages to it, which I'll quote in full. But please, no more "yes but's." I'm not interested in addressing all your objections, which would dissolve away if you read Groarke's book.

Excerpt 1:

Seen from an Aristotelian perspective, the problem with bad examples of induction is not invalidity but the falsehood of premises. Consider the ubiquitous (and admittedly tiresome) textbook example of white and black swans, used to show that inductive arguments must be invalid. This trope is often accompanied by a story. Everyone (in Europe) assumed swans are white; that is, they induced the general conclusion "all swans are white." But then black swans were discovered in Australia. So induction is unreliable.

But is this induction truly an invalid inference? As modern-day deductivists point out, natural-language arguments usually contain hidden elements. We need to fill in the blanks to understand what is going on. In the present instance, what Europeans were (allegedly) assuming seems clear. They were assuming that all swans possess the same colour. They reasoned, informally: These birds are white; these birds are swans; all swans are the same colour; therefore, all swans must be white. Note, however, that this is a valid argument. If the premises are all true, then the conclusion must be true. Of course, the premises are not all true. All swans are not the same colour. But that has no bearing on the issue of validity.

Note that the hidden premise "all swans have the same colour" is not a mere repetition of the other premises. It makes a different kind of claim. It assumes, in effect, that the term "these particular birds" and the term "swans" are, with respect to colour, convertible. This identification of the two terms is more of an assumption than an enference. (It does not require the kind of insight Aristotle associates with induction.) Still, we can try to formalize the argument in Aristotelian terms. Define our terms: S, these particular birds; P, white birds; and M, swans. The Europeans (allegedly) reasoned, "These particular birds are white birds. These particular birds are swans, convertible to all swans are (equivalent to) these particular birds. Therefore all swans must be the same colour as these birds; i.e., all swans must be white." Despite the awkward phrasing, this is a valid argument. It fits the following form. Major premise: All S is P. Minor premise: (All S is M, convertible to) all M is S. Conclusion: Therefore, all M is P. As it turns out, the subject and middle terms are not convertible. At least when it comes to colour, the nature of these individuals birds is not interchangeable with the nature of all swans. Whiteness is not a necessary property of swans. The argument goes astray then, because the hidden premise about convertibility is false, not because of something inherently wrong with the logical form.

The sceptic may object that we can never know whether the claim about convertibility is true. But even if we cannot know whether these white swans are interchangeable with other swans (in terms of colour), this would still be a valid argument. The argument posits convertibility. It assumes that these white swans are interchangeable or representative (in the relevant sense) with all other swans. If we can never know whether this is true, we will never know if the premises in the argument are true. But this does not attract from the validity of the argument. The argument only tells us that the conclusion must follow, if convertibility holds. Whether this is, in fact, the case is another issue.

Excerpt 2:

The ubiquitous counter-example of black swans swims through modern textbooks. We all know the refrain: gullible people once thought that whiteness was a necessary property of "swanness." Then they discovered that there are black swans in Australia. So this proves that induction is not reliable. Or is it? The test case deserves a second look.

As it turns out, the commonsense intuition that familiar white swans are a natural kind is basically correct. Nothing about this cognitive leap should make us doubt induction. Biologists, to this day, distinguish between diverse species of swan, largely on the basis of the colour of their plumage. There are, as it turns out, various species of swans. Some are pure white (the mute swan, the trumpeter swan, the whooper swan, the whistling swan, etc.), some white and black (the South American black-necked swan), the coscoroba swan (with black wing tips) and some almost entirely black (the Australian black swan, with white flight feathers). When people ordinarily declare that "all swans are white," they are not making a rigorous scientific claim. What they mean presumably is that the kind of bird we call a "swan" (most likely, the mute swan or the polish mute swan) is white. And they are right. Indeed, that kind of bird is white. We might be surprised to learn of the existence of black swans in Australia, but outside of Australia people are not ordinarily talking about those kinds of birds; they are talking about the birds they know, about the birds they refer to when they use the term "swan."

The black-swan example seems more a rhetorical trope than anything else. Plain parlance is too loose to stand up to precise scrutiny. On being told that there are black swans in Australia, we would, in all likelihood, ordinarily conclude that they must be a different species of bird. And we would be right. Black swans are a different species of bird. They do not provide a counter-example to the carefully worded inductive claim, "the species of swans we have here in Europe are white." We could move rigorously from the particular claim, "this Polish mute swan and that Polish mute swan are white," to the universal generalization that "all mute swans are white." This would be sound inductive reasoning.

White plumage is a necessary feature of European swans (in fact, of swans in the Northern Hemisphere), but it is not a necessary feature of the genus swan. Are people who claim that all swans are white referring to the species or to the genus? We cannot really know, but it seems more sensible to suggest that they are referring to the species. They are referring to "the kind" of bird they know. They are not claiming anything about unborn [i think he mean to say: unknown...reb] birds living in habitats half a world away. If they are, they are guilty of lazy thinking. But this is to take an uncharitable view of what is actually happening.

Aristotle does not claim that human beings never make mistakes. People are often, for example, inattentive, but that should not destroy confidence in inductive science. Whatever philosophical vocabulary we settle into -- notions such as genus, species, naure, essence, necessary or accidental property -- will be indispensable tools for making sense of the world...

I don't know what the rest of you reading this think of it, but to me, it is correct, awesomely well stated, and something Objectivists should embrace whole-heartedly, whether or not dyed-in-the-wool empiricists or modern logicians see its merits.

REB

(Hope no-one minds me reviving this old thread...)

Good quotes, though "Understanding Objectivism" contains a more intuitive (to my eyes) answer to the black swan objection. The answer is simply that we have to make inductions within the context of the rest of our knowledge about the world.

"All swans we have seen are white, therefore all swans are white" is not a valid induction if you keep in mind that colour of feathers is not normally an essential feature of animal species. Many species of animal come in different breeds with different colours of skin, fur, or feathers, so 18th century Europeans could have --and should have -- surmised that different-coloured swans might live on other continents.

A valid induction would be "all swans we have seen are mortal, therefore all swans are mortal". 17th century Europeans observed that death was universal to all animals, so "all swans are mortal" would have been a valid conclusion. Furthermore, aging is observed universally, making it clearer why death is universal (the induction may not have been valid if animals were observed to remain in perpetual youth then collapse suddenly - one may surmise that some curable disease caused death).

Our modern knowledge of the universal principle of entropy further confirms "all swans are mortal" as a valid induction.

I went on a big bitcoin-reading binge earlier this year.

Oversimplifying a little, but there seem to be 2 or 3 views predominant in the bitcoin world.

Before I explain these 3 views, remember the basic theory is that a currency has 3 functions: store of value, medium of exchange, medium of account. It's interesting to look at parts of the world with a weak currency which end up with a two-tier system: the local currency for everyday transactions (medium of exchange) but keep their money in USD (or sometimes gold, or stocks, or farmland - any safe store of value).

The goldbug argument is that gold is a better store of value than the dollar (no-one prints gold) and so in the long run will come to dominate.

As for bitcoin:

Position 1 is that bitcoin is a better medium of exchange: i.e. that because its anonymous, lower transaction fees, requires no trusted third party it will "disrupt" Visa, Mastercard etc (but possibly not displace USD or other fiat currencies) This viewpoint seems to be held implicitly by most bitcoin startups and mainstream tech commentators.

Position 2 is that bitcoin is a better store of value: the supply is fixed, which long-term makes it "harder than gold". (The bitcoin supply grows rapidly right now, and miners tend to dump new coin on the markets, which depresses the price, but long-term this will not be true). Here's one exponent of this viewpoint: http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/im-hoarding-bitcoins-and-no-you-cant-have-any/.

Position 1.a is that bitcoin is a protocol, i.e., that it's not bitcoin itself that's interesting, but the underlying "blockchain" idea which could be used as a platform for other innovations. This viewpoint is espoused by some Silicon Valley types (Marc Andreesen is one big one) but personally I think it's not grounded in reality.

The divide between 1 and 2 showed up in the debate over increasing the blockchain length. If bitcoin is a "better visa", increasing the blockchain size increases consumer convenience and eases mass adoption. If it's a "better gold", increased blockchain size lowers security and makes it easier for governments to subvert it.

Position 2 is not widespread but I think it does make some sense. What doesn't help that group is that its main exponent is a highly intelligent but rather unsavoury character (hang out in the bitcoin world long enough and you'll know who I mean). Humorously enough for Objectivists, he's a rare example of a libertarian Kantian. He's a student of physics and philosophy who espouses his hardcore anti-government, pro-capitalist views to his little clique of followers, but unlike John Galt he wraps it all up in a deontological framework where having goals and purposes is morally suspect (he actually said this). Instead, the right action is intrinsically knowable from the situation. He thinks bitcoin is self-evidently the only form of money worth caring about, and will inevitably win - indeed it has already won. Ergo no action needs to be taken except acting clever on IRC all day.

For myself, having travelled a lot over the last year the existing means of sending money around are already pretty good, so #1 doesn't have much to "disrupt", and most bitcoin companies are struggling to deal with fraud checks, security, regulatory requirements etc which the existing financial system has already created infrastructure to solve. Witness e.g. the MtGox hack, the pireat40 scam, etc.

#1a appeals to ungrounded SV types who like constructing elaborate theories about innovation, but the "blockchain" itself isn't that interesting. #2 has legs -- most people with lots of USD try to park it somewhere safer, usually stocks or commodity futures, less frequently gold -- and maybe bitcoin could become the safe haven. But to do that it needs much more investment in reliable services built around it -- and I don't see that happening.

As a result I'm more bearish than I was when I first got into it. I'm probably gonna sell half my current holdings, wanna buy a bitcoin or 2?

Hi Michael! Yes, seems like it'll be a fun place to hang around.

I was reading the archives and saw many posts from you. How are your attempts to promote Objectivism going?

Welcome to OL, Isaac Lewis.

Thanks, Stephen!

I wanted to mention that the quarks composing the protons and neutrons that compose the nuclei of atoms are not differently disposed according to whether the molecules containing the nuclei are in a solid or a liquid assembly with other molecules. The quarks are not explanatory factors in the story of phase changes (solid, liquid, gas) of a collection of water molecules.

Sure. The quarks don't "know" that they're part of a solid or liquid assembly - they act in the same way regardless. Likewise, the H2O molecules only "know" about their bonds (or lack of bonds) with neighbouring molecules, not whether they make up a drop of water or block of ice.

From reading further, though, it seems my problem is that I've assumed reductionism is true. If we don't assume reductionism, the Objectivist view of volition makes much more sense.

In the case of free will, you are right to consider not molecular activities, but neuronal activities. We must know the right level of group neuronal activities in the brain at which the various sorts of choices occur. We must know the right circuits and their neuronal inputs from perception, imagination, emotion, and reasoning. Then look at the biological employment of regularity- and chaos-physics (the quantum level will be irrelevant for sure at the time scales of choices) in its whole brain-in-body setting in the world to see what physics determinism and indeterminism (classical, not quantum) is in play for the organism and its choice-making control system.

Isn't classical indeterminism just unpredictability? And my understanding of chaotic systems is that they're determined, but sensitive to very small changes and so unpredictable ("the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future").

What do you think of reductionism? (broad question, but I want to know where you're coming from).

Relevant concepts bolded. He's noticed that people who are proud tend to be independent, integrated, and pursuing their own ideals or artistic conscience.

(The "traditions of my family" line is also interesting -- he probably met some old aristocrat types who also fit this same mould, with a slightly different worldview).

Concepts reference an infinite number of permutations of species (i.e. particulars subsumed under the concept).

Sure.

One can begin to fathom the infinite possibilities in consideration, but it's the power of conceptualization that divides and conquers these infinite possibilities.

No, no. There aren't infinite possibilities, at least not in any meaningful sense.

Welcome to OL Issac.

Thanks!

What drew you to this thread?

Are you a student?

I'm a programmer. How about you?

As for this thread, I was intrigued by the title but not so much by the content of OP.

As for the concept of God, I think that atheism (and not agnosticism) is the only consistent position with respect to objectivist epistemology.

Once upon a time I'd have been agnostic and would have said that "well, ultimately you have to accept reason on faith - how can you rationally determine that reason works?"

But this is not consistent with Objectivism. If you're an Objectivist, you accept that if you perceive an entity, you know that it's there. This is the basic foundation for rationality: that you perceive a table, and not simply a sensory blur. You know that there's a table there (if you deny this knowledge, then no further thought is possible). From this, you can infer that things exist, that they have identities, and that your consciousness can perceive them. From further observation and thought you see that existence consists of a physical world of time, space and matter and that it follows consistent laws; that your consciousness depends on your nature as a living being and requires a logical process of concept formation to gain the fullest understanding of the world. At no point do you need to postulate a supernatural realm parallel to this one, or an intelligence which created the universe.

The only reason to believe in God is confusion over the relationship of consciousness to existence, and/or of the metaphysical status of concepts. These questions have confused most of humanity, so you're in good company if you think that consciousness is somehow primary, or that "existence" must be instantiated somewhere as "Being itself", but you're not an Objectivist.

Hi! New poster here. I read ITOE for the first time two months ago, and that was my gateway into the rest of Objectivist philosophy. (I'd read Rand's fiction before then, but hadn't looked at her non-fiction). It's been a fascinating journey.

Last week I worked through Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand and one of my main questions is around the axiomatic concept of volition.

I accept the argument that volition is an essential concept; if there's no free choice then there's no rationality, no agency, no knowledge. But, what is volition?

Causality is a corollary of identity. At the most fundamental level of physics, quarks, fermions and the other elementary particles do what they do. At the everyday level, the objects we perceive also do what they do. If you put ice cubes in water they melt. And the melting of ice is ultimately a very, very complex movement of quarks (i.e., energy is transferred from the water to the ice, breaking down the ice's structure; if we zoom in further the energy transfer consists of vibrating molecules bouncing off each other). We have necessary micro-events which are organised into the necessary macro-events we perceive.

Volition is a more complex form of causality, I get that. People's options are determined; which options they choose, and their choice to think at all, is free (Isaac Newton could have chosen to spend less time working on the Bible code and more time working on physics; he couldn't have chosen to develop quantum mechanics). Through introspection we see that the most basic decision we face is whether to focus, or not.

Most decisions people make can be explained; their decision to focus cannot. But we have to accept that there is a meaningful sense in which this is a free decision; if not, then we're basically automata (and all discussions, including this one, are just meaningless grunts and squeals).

But, as with the ice cube, the actions of our minds must ultimately consist of an extremely complex motion of quarks. At the most basic level, the universe is a deterministic motion of fundamental particles. At the perceptual level we operate at, we see large structures of atoms acting in certain ways - ice cubes melting, people thinking. There's no contradiction here: quarks, ice cubes and people all exist in the same way.

Unlike with the ice cubes melting, how exactly psychological events reduce to physical events is unknown; but we know that they do reduce (if they didn't, that would suggest consciousness had some magical properties that transcended mere matter).

So it looks like we're back at determinism. We perceive someone making a free choice (e.g. a child choosing to focusing on their homework) - but this single event is made up of many unfree micro-events.

(Some say that quantum indeterminism somehow explains consciousness and human free will. But, even if there are random events at the ultimate level of physics, we can't use these to explain volition; human volition is still a complex sum of physical events).

Is the answer to integrate the Objectivist notion of volition with Hume's notion of compatibilist free will? We have to modify Hume's theory to make it fit with Objectivism: as I understand him, Hume basically says that we are determined, but that doesn't mean that we're not free - what we mean by freedom is simply the ability to act in accord with our values (he's a subjectivist in regards to value).

A rough overview of Hume's viewpoint would be: (environmental and genetic causes) -> (the kind of person we are and what we value) -> (our actions). To Hume, the fact that we don't, ultimately, choose what we value doesn't effect our freedom so long as we can act on those values.

Objectivism says that defining our values rationally requires as an act of volition, as does evaluating options with reference to our values. The choice to think about these things is the seemingly irreducible choice. But, I hold that this choice ultimately reduces to neurological events. Whether we focus or not depends on the habits we've ingrained over time, our energy levels, whether we've had coffee that day, etc.

A rough overview: (environmental and genetic causes) -> (our propensity to focus or not) -> (thinking about what kind of person we want to be and what to value) -> (our actions).

Again, the kind of person we are leads to our actions - a brain that's been trained to focus will be more likely to focus; and then the knowledge we are aware of will guide our thoughts (but not determine them - because every thought requires another act of focus). The concept of "volition" is both valid and essential at the level we operate on, in the same way "melting" is a valid concept.

Still, I'm unsatisfied with my reasoning. If whether we focus or not depends simply on patterns of neurons firing - on how well our brains have been trained - it seems like we're back in the classic trap of determinism, i.e. that we can't meaningfully criticise the unthinking and unfocused.

Thoughts?