SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 2012
Bertrand Russell On Induction.
“The inductive principle, however, is equally incapable of being provedby an appeal to experience. Experience might conceivably confirm the inductive principle as regards the cases that have been already examined; but as regards unexamined cases, it is the inductive principle alone that can justify any inference from what has been examined to what has not been examined. All arguments which, on the basis of experience, argue as to the future or the unexperienced parts of the past or present, assume the inductive principle; hence we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question. Thus we must either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic evidence, or forgo all justification of our expectations about the future. If the principle is unsound, we have no reason to expect the sun to rise to-morrow, to expect bread to be more nourishing than a stone, or to expect that if we throw ourselves off the roof we shall fall. When we see what looks like our best friend approaching us, we shall have no reason to suppose that his body is not inhabited by the mind of our worst enemy or of some total stranger. All our conduct is based upon associations which have worked in the past, and which we therefore regard as likely to work in the future; and this likelihood is dependent for its validity upon the inductive principle. ” An excerpt (chapter 6, on induction) from “Problems of Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell.
You can get the whole thing here.
If you think you have answer to this “problem”, feel free to let me know.
Labels: bertrand russell
posted by Hezekiah Ahaz @ 2:20 PM 76 comments 
Evolution of Skepticism 
76 Comments:
“Thus we must either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic evidence, or forgo all justification of our expectations about the future.”
yup, Mr Russel did not see this so called problem any reason to accept christanity.
You’re a genius.
In other words, by Faith.
Your objection is absolutely useless.
You’re a genius.
In other words, by Faith.
You must be defining “faith” differently than anyone else.
Trust based on evidence is not faith.
Do you have answer or not?
” All our conduct is based upon associations which have worked in the past, and which we therefore regard as likely to work in the future; and this likelihood is dependent for its validity upon the inductive principle.”
This does not say I wake up with the sun is shining through my window, so I expect the sky to be blue because I have faith in the sky not changing colors. It says I wake up in this situation expecting the sky to be blue because my experience and the information I have consumed through life tells me it is going to be blue.
Faith and knowledge are not the same.
@evolutionofskepticism
ah but what hezekiah is saying is that that reasoning that you gave an example of itself presupposes the validity of induction, its circular. I am not sure Hezekaih is actually wrong when he accesses someone using Russel’s answer of employing faith. I think the way to deal with the question is to attack the question’s validity itself.
damn, how do you use that iphone of yours to type this stuff, this phone sucks. Ok here I post for the 3rd time what I meant to say. Please delete the earlier two post Hezekiah.
@evolutionofskepticism
ah but what hezekiah is saying is that reasoning that you gave an example of itself presupposes the validity of induction, its circular. I am not sure Hezekaih is actually wrong when he accuses someone using Russel’s answer of employing faith. I think the way to deal with the question is to attack the questions validity itself.
my example, of the sky, was an example of why it is not faith but rather knowledge and experience that dictates what I expect.
The best part about all of this is I do not subscribe to any philosophical dogma, psychology is much more interesting to me, and to watch philosophical debates continue in circles, because philosophy was meant for theory and concept and not fact, is entertaining, like putting peanut butter on a dogs tail, it never stops spinning.
From my point of view on philosophy
(which can be read here: http://wp.me/p2gzii-c) is that there will never be a philosophical question with a real answer, it is meant to question everything but has no intention of supplying an answer. So to ask for an answer to a philosophical question is like asking an Alzheimer’s patient to remember your birthday.
@HA
Let’s start asking Rhetorical Questions of each other instead, you may actually make some head way.
It’s actually a pretty good question.
You’re exactly right there would need to be order before experience. However, that order is only discovered by experience.
Concept formation is automatic. However, everytime you attempt to use a concept that assumes induction.
The only way out of it is to appeal to something outside yourself or transcend induction itself.
What say you Justin?
Derik,
What allows you to extract past experiences and make predictions about the present/future?
Do animals understand logic and reasoning?
Are animals capable of begging the question?
I don’t know. I am not an animal.
However, I highly doubt animals worry about these things.
As far as begging the question, in my opinion it would be a waste of time for an animal to concern themselves with such things, meaning that it would not be worthwhile for them to engage in circular arguments pertaining to metaphysics or the reasoning as to how we are here.
What do you think seperates us from animals?
Aside from that I have to admit, I agree with Agent Smith from the Matrix, we’re probably closer to a virus than most animals anymore. We spread and destroy our surroundings with complete disregard for our host.
Is there evil in the world?
For instance I have a vary narrow perception of evil, I won’t get into details but lets just say many of today’s morality laws I find to be comedic and unnecessary.
so as far as the existence of evil, no evil does not exist, evil is a set of deeds that people do that is contrary to the social standard of perceived good.
yes but that does not mean that they, the whole country of North Korea were right to do so:) Are you arguing that morality is purely subjective?
let me get to the bottom this.
So, There is no standard of morality?
The argument is that good and evil are based primarily on personal, social and cultural perception. They may not have been right to us, but from their stand point he was a great leader. To us he was a tyrant and evil little man.
@HA
define morality to an unarguable point and you will then have a standard, standards are set by social and cultural leaders, which you cannot claim to be 100% correct leaving it to perception of the person setting the standards.
For instance, we will dig into one of the ten commandments. We’ll use “Thou Shalt Not Steal.”
What if my daughter was starving, I was injured to a point that I could not work and what ever state benefits did not last a whole month, so I stole food to feed my daughter so she didn’t have to eat out of a garbage can.
Our social morals state that stealing is wrong, but my purpose for stealing was justifiable as a father doing what ever he must to tend to his child’s well being.
So which is right? Society perceives my actions as criminal. Yet another point of view shows my actions as being a caring father.
Another example, Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbors Wife.
What if it is consensual between all parties? I have known a few serious Christians that were considered Swingers and did not feel they were breaking this commandment because all parties are in fact consenting adults. Which moral standard is correct? The mass christian standard that states sex should only be within a marriage and only for the sake of procreation or the one that the small sub-culture has stated is alright because everyone is happy with the situation and consensual?
In my opinion, the sub-culture of swingers is correct because their actions do not harm anyone outside of their circle.
Is it ok if I steal from you and covet your wife?
and as far as coveting my wife, if you tame her you can have her for a night. Believe me, not an easy feat.
I think your response may not have been well thought out.
Look I think you know what’s happening here.
Now, is it ok derik if I steal and lie to you?
When you call something right or wrong what do you base that on?
How do you know what’s right or wrong if there is no standard?
If the lie did effect me, I would care, and I would respond accordingly. But that does not mean that lying is evil. It means that you felt a necessity to tell me something other than the truth. My response will vary depending on reason.
So there you have it, both would be right or wrong in my opinion based on perceived necessity of the lie or theft.
Now, to further answer the rest of your questions, I will go with the amendment of adding lying to the equation. I know that lying is wrong because the majority of the worlds society has decided that untruths are wrong as a whole, but as you saw because I am anti-establishment I choose to assess each situation based on it’s own merit. This is also how I judge whether something is right or wrong, I can best describe it from the Scott Cunningham book Wicca A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner where he says “The Wiccan ideal of morality is simple: do what you want as long as you harm none.” and “do nothing that will harm yourself.”
Seems like a pretty simple description of right and wrong, if it hurts others or yourself it’s wrong, if it doesn’t it’s not wrong. may not be right, but it’s not wrong. But again, this is how I choose to perceive right and wrong, meaning in the end it’s still a perception and not something that can be boxed up and given as the only answer.
This is getting kinda hilarious.
What is truth derik?
My truth is something that can be proven through tangible evidence. and Tangible evidence to me is something that can be proven through the use of ones senses. Obviously this is not a reasonable explanation of truth to you since you believe our senses lie to us, but it works pretty good for me.
“truth is based on perception”
How do you know that statement is true?
For example, you perceive the bible to be a factual book. I on the other hand see it to be a compilation of short stories based in a historical fantasy setting. – our truths are different due to perception of fact, you say that because the words are on the page it is fact, so I question does that make the information in the Satanic Bible fact?
but we both can’t be right.
Are you evading?
How do know you derik that what you are perceiving is true?
Are you ruling out deception, delusion etc.?
No, Derik truth is based on God not on my perception.
in my view the bible is a book, like many other books it has truthful statements within it, and it shows signs of morality, but so did Aesop’s Fables, that didn’t make them true.
as far as deception and delusion, televangelists are full of deceit, doesn’t make their message differ much from your own, they just take advantage of people while doing it. And as far as delusion, if someone today claimed to be Jesus they would be considered delusional, but how would we know he wasn’t telling the truth?
and you have proven my point in your statement “No, Derik truth is based on god not on my perception.” how is it based on god when you can’t fact check against the origin of your truth? You can’t walk up to god and say “is what I am saying true or not?” instead you have to rely on your perception of truth to give you an understanding of what you consider truth.
another example of perceived truth.
“Honey, does this dress make my butt look fat?”
“no dear, your butt looks wonderful in that dress.”
Now her butt may in fact look gigantic in the dress, but to her husband her butt looks perfect the way it is within the dress. He is telling her the truth, but others may find it to have been a lie.
Can they both be right?
by the way, is the information in the satanic bible correct?
if somebody claimed to be Jesus today, and many have done so, we can immediately reject him based on the revelation we have.
The statement “truth is relative” is self-refuting.
If it’s true that “truth is relative” then I could easily say truth is not relative. Since you would have to agree with me your statement will be refuted.
Satanic bible ? never read it and don’t plan on to.
then if it’s not relative… does his wife’s ass look fat in the dress or not?
see again, if you actually read more than every other word of my statement, the beauty of truth being relative is it is based upon point of view. You may not find the truth being relative, but I do. For instance, and I will use an argument you’ve used a couple times, if I see something as red, but a color blind person sees it as grey is it not true that based upon each persons view point their color is correct because who is to know which view point is the truth? Did god tell one person it was red and one person it was grey? or since our senses as you say are from god, is he actually deceiving one of them?
No, Derik truth is based on God not on my perception.
One has to perceive everything through one’s senses and reasoning abilities. That would include your god.
Without perception, you’d never be able to tell that your god existed. Look that word up sometime.
Plus, your god does not always advocate telling the truth.
See 1 Samuel 16:1-5. How can you base the concept of “truth” on a being who lies?
The thing is I start with the truth of the bible. I don’t work backwards.
How do you know that the bible is true? I’ve shown you were it has errors before…
As to your question to me earlier: Others have answered it right after you asked me.
Do you have answer or not?
Quit wasting time.
The statement “there is no truth” is absolutely preposterous.
does his wifes ass look fat in that dress?
and
Did god deceive one of those poor people on the color?
and here’s another one, if we lived in a world where everyone saw in grey scale and suddenly someone saw color, would that persons truth about the way things look be different than everyone elses?
It’s simple.
Is truth relative or objective?
so instead of one person seeing color what if one thousand unrelated people suddenly started seeing color?
and since I’ve already established the basis behind the first two questions it should be as you say “simple” to actually answer the questions now that they have been asked a third time, by the way are you evading answering the questions?
so for the third time (hopefully the charm)
Does the mans wifes ass look fat in the dress?
and
Was god deceiving one of those people on what color the object really was?
Truth is not relative.
oh and as far as your comment “the truth is not relative.” my response is obvious, in your opinion, which is a beautiful response because it confirms my claim.
If the truth is not relative, prove it, I have given you many examples of truth being relative, where is your proof of truth being absolute? Are you going to say God or the bible? Because that would be an amazing answer, since once again I can respond with “in your opinion” and I can back it up through referencing Wicca, Hinduism, Norse Mythology, Shinto, Buddhism or just about any other religion that does not reference your god or bible but believes their answers to be truth.
So maybe we are going for lucky number 7, so here’s the fourth try.
Did “God” deceive the man who sees color or who sees grey?
and
does the mans wife’s ass look fat in the dress?
and now for the third time, if the world saw in grey and suddenly a thousand people saw color which truth is correct?
Are they evil because of something they may do once a month, yet they repent and ask for forgiveness from God? Are they forgiven despite the knowledge that they will do it again next month?
You said truth is relative.
ok, truth is not relative.
Do you agree?
If you say yes, you refute yourself
If you say no, you refute yourself.
Your choice
in your opinion truth is not relative.
You believe everything to be black and white, the beauty of being color blind is you see shades of grey.
So attempt number 5 for the first two questions.
Does the wifes ass look fat in the dress?
and
Does the man seeing Grey scale or the man seeing color possess the truth?
I’ll leave the other question out for now, I think these two questions make a valid enough point.
Your playing useless word games.
hahaha what is it with this wife question.
Do colors exist or not?
and actually yes both of us can be wrong… that’s another example of truth being relative. If we added Justin, Steve, Reynold, or Dawson they may have a different view point than either of us, meaning that within their opinion we are wrong.
I am not playing word games, if I was I would be trying to use twisted context and illogical syntax to my sentence structure. Instead I am trying to make these questions as blatant and direct as possible.
So attempt number Six, we’re getting closer and closer to that lucky number seven, will we get an answer though? Only HA can tell for sure.
Does the mans wifes ass look fat in the dress? (if you need context scroll up)
and question number two.
Does the man who sees in Grey scale or the man who sees in color possess the truth?
If you agree, you refute yourself.
if you disagree, you refute yourself.
Can the whole world be wrong?
and again, I don’t have to worry about answering in the restraint of you description, my answer states that it is left for perception to decipher the truth.
So lucky number seven,
Does her ass look fat in the dress or not? (you said it was a simple question to answer but still refuse to answer)
and
which man is god deceiving if truth is not relative, the one who sees in color or the one who sees in grey scale?
If you consider yourself to be honest, you’ll stop playing word games.
Now, the statement:
“everybodies opinion could be wrong”
Is problematic,
if you say yes, you have problems.
if you say no, you have problems.
as far as this quote:
“Now, the statement:
“everybodies opinion could be wrong”
Is problematic,
if you say yes, you have problems.
if you say no, you have problems.”
I think you are working on your own word game yet at the same time tripping yourself up.
answer this question, does your refusal of answering my questions prove that truth is relative?
So you don’t have to scroll up I will post them yet again.
Does the wifes ass look fat in the dress?
and
which man is god deceiving, the one who sees in color or the man who sees in grey scale?
if truth is relative, then my truth is that truth is not relative.
In that case, you would have to agree and reduced yourself to absurdity.
But since you state that truth is not relative, answer the two questions.
Does the wifes ass look fat?
and
which person is god deceiving, the one who sees in color or the one who sees in grey scale?
if truth is not relative, there is an absolute answer to both of these questions.
but if truth is relative, the question about the wife can be boiled down to the statement “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” (great reference to confirm my claim, and it’s such a popular statement too). And as far as which truth is real in the terms of color vs. grey scale, I leave that up to you for determination since I honestly don’t have that answer, my truth is color is there and grey scale is the false statement, but if I woke up tomorrow and was color blind, I would have to revise my truth because even if I knew it was red the day before, my current senses tell me it is no longer red but in fact a shade of grey.
your requirement that I HAVE to agree with you is the only claim towards absurdity.
assuming a necessity of affirmation will just leave you blowing like a leaf in the wind.
Everything you just said is false.
That’s my truth.
beauty is not in the eye of the beholder?
god does not give us our senses?
you didn’t say truth was not relative? (sweet thanks for confirmation on that)
your truth is very convoluted and twisted my friend.
Next question, which way is up?
(I only ask because I am not sure you actually have a firm grasp on reality anymore, I may have drove you insane.)
Oh and since you have confirmed you are incapable of answering my previous questions, I will ask anyone else who is reading this whether they believe the mans wifes ass looks fat or not in the dress, and which man is being deceived, the one who sees color or the one who sees greyscale?
You can’t have it both ways.
If both our “relative truths” are true then yours is false.
I’m going to go ahead and accept a portion of your truth that gives me the ability to accept that you do not honestly believe God gives us our senses (something I have seen many people try to get you to admit.) I will also accept that you have refuted your statement that truth is not relative, with the comment “Everything you just said is false.” Since I had previously been stating you had claimed truth to be relative (see these are word games).
I am happy to allow you to continue in your ignorant bliss of your perceived truth.
Hey, I know let’s bring back the KKK member question, here I’ll even copy and paste it again so you don’t have to scroll up.
At April 15, 2012 4:54 PM , evolutionofskepticism said…
and how about this, most KKK members consider themselves good christians, yes GOOD christians. Yet they perform evil actions towards others, despite some being community leaders, pastors, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, civil servants, police, firemen, and just about every other profession in the world, and, for sake of argument lets say, aside from their actions in the KKK they are good wholesome people.
Are they evil because of something they may do once a month, yet they repent and ask for forgiveness from God? Are they forgiven despite the knowledge that they will do it again next month?
You said there is no evil.
But by your world view as I understand it, if they repent and ask for forgiveness they are forgiven of their sins, I have never heard anyone say that they couldn’t go right back out and do it again if they again repent and ask for forgiveness. Isn’t that how it all works?
Jesus died so the KKK members can kill people right?
I mean I’m pretty sure it’s actually even a prerequisite to be Christian to be in the KKK.
Don’t worry HA, we know you can’t answer the hard questions so these may as well be rhetorical.
You’ll be surprised.
Cheap bate tactics
Wrong.
Based on the way you’re using the word, “Truth is relative” is not a truth claim. It’s an opinion.
Is truth subjective or objective?
Derik,
anyone except the satanic and jehovas witness translations
as far as my opinion of lying, refer to one of my previous responses. In this case I would be upset because if you tried to refer me to a resource to prove your point knowing I would find it to be lies, that would be a waste of my time, so I might be a little upset.
So it’s a simple question, which one is the true translation? the Koran? the Dead Sea Scrolls? KJV?
Be honest you’re here to disrupt and harrass.
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