Tal's epistemology (and DCP's)

[_Ren]

OK - I'm gonna take the role of the 'dunce' in this thread.
...for the benefit of the lurkers you understand :D

I thought I had a handle on the 'fallacy' of induction. But now I'm doubting I every really 'got it'.
...let me describe how I 'saw it'. And perhaps someone can talk me thought it...

Imagine someone holding a ball, and letting go of the ball. It falls to the floor. So that's one recorded instance of letting go of a ball, and it dropping to the floor.
They pick it up, and repeat the experiment. They let go of the ball, it - again - falls to the floor. So that's 2 replays of the experiment, with the same result.
The experiement is repeated again. And again. And again. 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 times etc.

20. 30. 40. 50. 60. 70. 80. 90.
We get to repition 99. With the same result.

Now - THIS is what I saw as the fallacy of induction:

The fallacy of induction would be to say 'If I am to repeat this experiment again, we now KNOW perfectly well that the ball will - as it has done all the other times - fall to the floor'.

Now, I got that. I got why that is a fallacy.
But, this is what I am now being presented as the 'fallacy of induction' (as I see it):

The fallacy of induction would be to say 'If I am to repeat this experiement again, I can be more confident that the ball will fall to the ground than I could be when I tried the experiment the first time'.

That's the fallacy of induction? Really? That it would be irrational to be more confident of the result of the experiment, no matter how many times it has been repeated - with the same result?
It doesn't' matter whether you accept the argument or not. But can someone actually talk me though the argument itself? Right from basics? Or describe what I'm missing, or what I've misunderstood perhaps?
Cos I'll quite happily admit that I just don't get it. At all... I 'thought' I did, but I obviously don't...


(Of course, it's significant that I chose the number '100' as my example. If we had 8 fingers instead of 10, I may well chose the decimal number 64 as my the number of iterations for my example instead. But whether you represent a quanitity as the number 100, or as the hexadecimal 64, they both mean the same value...)

[_Tarski]

OK - I'm gonna take the role of the 'dunce' in this thread.
...for the benefit of the lurkers you understand :D

I thought I had a handle on the 'fallacy' of induction. But now I'm doubting I every really 'got it'.
...let me describe how I 'saw it'. And perhaps someone can talk me thought it...

Imagine someone holding a ball, and letting go of the ball. It falls to the floor. So that's one recorded instance of letting go of a ball, and it dropping to the floor.
They pick it up, and repeat the experiment. They let go of the ball, it - again - falls to the floor. So that's 2 replays of the experiment, with the same result.
The experiement is repeated again. And again. And again. 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 times etc.

20. 30. 40. 50. 60. 70. 80. 90.
We get to repition 99. With the same result.

Now - THIS is what I saw as the fallacy of induction:

The fallacy of induction would be to say 'If I am to repeat this experiment again, we now KNOW perfectly well that the ball will - as it has done all the other times - fall to the floor'.

I think there is a difference between a "fallacy of induction" and the "problem of induction".

Within formal deductive logic we have the following incorrect inference (call it an instance of a fallacy)

Let a light number be defined as a positive integer which has less than 100 prime factors
One make check that 1 is a light number, 2 is a light number , 3 is a light number, 4 is a light number,
......,10 is a light number.
Conclusion: All integers are light numbers. (NOT!)

There are also several fallacies from informal logic that are considered fallacies of induction: See II on the site http://thenonsequitur.com/?page_id=167


But science is not a purely deductive or formal logical endeaver. So what is the significance within empircal science of making a series of observation and then making a generalization. When is it justified and how? This is the problem of induction.

.
this is what I am now being presented as the 'fallacy of induction' (as I see it):

The fallacy of induction would be to say 'If I am to repeat this experiement again, I can be more confident that the ball will fall to the ground than I could be when I tried the experiment the first time'.

That's the fallacy of induction? Really? That it would be irrational to be more confident of the result of the experiment, no matter how many times it has been repeated - with the same result?

Well most of us don't actually believe that such thinking is always irrational. The problem is to say exactly when it is appropriate and why.
Note that our confidence that the sun will rise tomorrow is not just a result of repeated observation of that bare fact but is largely do to a successful theory of gravity and planetary motion. I.e. theory plays a role.

Look here:http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/induction.html

[_Tal Bachman]

Geez, this thing's really taking off.

Renegade, you asked about supporting quotes about particular assertions, but I think if you re-read my posts you will see that I included several from Hume that support my claims for him. If you still have questions about my characterizations after a re-read, let me know and I'll post more supporting quotes.

By the way, I don't know why ALITD thinks I'm setting out to "solve the problem of induction" here; as I said explicitly, all I'm going to try to do here is show that Popper et al have failed. That is, after all, part of what I need to show to prove that subsequent efforts (like Mormon apologetic ones) influenced by, or based on, these arguments must be flawed. And in fact, I wonder if I will already have shown it with the prima facie argument I started with, as long as I can show that in fact, that the positions of the philosophers in question really do incline them, or force them, to deny (K).

I'm going to keep going and then we can discuss at more length.

By the way, vaccuum in the darkness, I still await your answers to the little questions I asked on the other thread, about you producing a quote from Brooks demonstrating his "rabid misogyny", and about how you would react to an official First Presidency doctrinal statement ruling out a Darwinian explanation to human life on earth.

Tal

[_Tarski]

Geez, this thing's really taking off.

Renegade, you asked about supporting quotes about particular assertions, but I think if you re-read my posts you will see that I included several from Hume that support my claims for him. If you still have questions about my characterizations after a re-read, let me know and I'll post more supporting quotes.

By the way, I don't know why ALITD thinks I'm setting out to "solve the problem of induction" here; as I said explicitly, all I'm going to try to do here is show that Popper et al have failed. Tal

Well since the problem of induction is still a problem and epistemology is still an ongoing quest I guess the idea that each of these guys failed to provid us with a good system (and so failed to achieve thier grandest goals) is something we can all already agree on. I also thought you might be trying to solve the problem of induction.

That is, after all, part of what I need to show to prove that subsequent efforts (like Mormon apologetic ones) influenced by, or based on, these arguments must be flawed. And in fact, I wonder if I will already have shown it with the prima facie argument I started with, as long as I can show that in fact, that the positions of the philosophers in question really do incline them, or force them, to deny (K).

This denying of K is the part I am waiting for.

I'm going to keep going and then we can discuss at more length.

Good.

As for recruiting Po Mo ideas into apologetics, well that is a trend found also outside of Mormon apologetics and most here would agree it's a debacle. I've seen apologist go down this route but is Dan Peterson one of them? It doesn't seem so to me (look at my list of things I think he would agree with) that he is. That was one of the main reasons I started this thread (to sort that out).

By the way, what do you think of this essay: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/faithint.htm

[_Daniel Peterson]

As for recruiting Po Mo ideas into apologetics, well that is a trend found also outside of Mormon apologetics and most here would agree it's a debacle. I've seen apologist go down this route but is Dan Peterson one of them? It doesn't seem so to me (look at my list of things I think he would agree with) that he is. That was one of the main reasons I started this thread (to sort that out).

Perhaps I can help?

Dan Peterson is absolutely not a postmodernist.

Trust me. I know.

(There's only one person on this thread who knows Peterson's thoughts better than I do. But he's wrong on this one.)

[_Tal Bachman]

Because there seems to be a bit of unclarity about all this so far (no wonder, since Hume ain't the clearest writer, and I'm probably not the clearest expositior), I've tried to boil down the arguments of Hume I've been characterizing to a series of interlinked syllogisms (note that the conclusion of each serves as the first premise of the one following). By the way, I haven't been providing exact references for the supporting quotes just to keep things brisk, but if anyone wants, just punch in to Google half of any sentence and then you can find out exactly where each is, and read the surrounding quotes. Most of them are from Enquiry or Treatise.

Remember, too, that for Hume, "matters of fact and existence" are known through experience and observation; but those operate through inductive reasoning; and so his task is to justify inductive reasoning - which as he admits in the quote I provided at the end of my last post, he finds he cannot do.

Anyway, what follows is a simplified, syllogistic recap. These set-up what I think is the crucial point here, which I will mention below.

Syllogism One:


P1: There are only two types of reasoning, deductive (a priori) and inductive (a posteriori);

P2: Deductive (a priori) reasoning cannot justify a belief about a “matter of fact and existence”;

C1: Therefore, only inductive reasoning could justify a belief about a “matter of fact and existence”.


Syllogism Two:

P3: Only inductive reasoning could justify a belief about a “matter of fact and existence”;

P4: Inductive reasoning depends upon the premise that nature is uniform;

C2: Therefore, any justified belief about a “matter of fact and existence” depends upon the premise that nature is uniform.


Syllogism Three:


P5: Any justified belief about a “matter of fact and existence” depends upon the premise that nature is uniform;

P6: The proposition that nature is uniform is itself a “matter of fact and existence”;

C3: Therefore, justified belief in the proposition that nature is uniform depends upon the premise that nature is uniform.


Syllogism Four:


P7: Justified belief in the proposition that nature is uniform depends upon the premise that nature is uniform;

P8: Using as a premise the very proposition which the premise is being used to establish, as described in P7, is irrational and does not provide justification for belief;

C4: Therefore, belief in the proposition that nature is uniform is irrational and unjustified.


Syllogism Five:


P9: Belief in the proposition that nature is uniform is irrational and unjustified;

P10: As noted in P4, all inductive reasoning depends upon the premise that nature is uniform;

C5: Therefore, all inductive reasoning depends upon an irrational and unjustifiable belief, and must be itself then, as all the beliefs derived from it, irrational and unjustifiable.

Hume's conclusion about induction, it need hardly be pointed out, is extreme. It may even be said to be patently wrong: Hume's position is, after all, not a position of inductive fallibilism – the position that an inductively-derived conclusion is not necessarily or certainly true, but probably true (a position which appears to be something like the default position of the healthy human mind). It is in fact a position of inductive incredulism , for as Hume himself says (HEADS UP):

“We have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience”.

(That "no" is a killer).

For us to understand any of Hume's arguments on this issue, we must understand this point. Indeed, Hume himself repeats it again and again. Here is the same quote with its surrounding sentences:

"That there is nothing in any object, considered in itself, which can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it; and that even after the observation of the frequent conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those which we have had experience; I say, let men be once fully convinced of these two principles, and this will throw them so loose from all common systems, that they will make no difficulty of receiving any, which may appear the most extraordinary." (No need to point out the irony of history's most notorious denier of miracles here in effect providing cover for so many wacko beliefs since!).

(For this quote, see Treatise, "Of the Probability of Causes". It's online here: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/ ... .3.12.html)

This last quote makes plain that an important source of Hume's inductive incredulism (in addition perhaps to an inability to extinguish the emotional attachment to the pleasing ideal of perfect certainty, promised by deduction from axioms discoverable through pure reason) is in fact the thesis of empiricism.

Why this should be so is not difficult to see. Empiricism posits that the only reason to believe a contingent proposition about something unobserved, is a proposition about something observed. (As Hume puts it, “...all the laws of nature, and all the operations of bodies without exception, are known only by experience...”.) But......inductive skepticism says that even a proposition about something observed is not a reason to believe anything about the unobserved.

It will be an interesting point for those here (one unbecoming, gratuitous jab coming up) who believe that there is a man living near a far distant star called Kolob, who is a member of a church founded a couple of centuries ago in New York state, and who sends his official messages to earthlings (like about earring wear) only through a fellow who actually denies doctrinal status to the very claim that his communicator was, or is, a man, and who only two decades ago was quite happy to secretly buy (unbeknownst to him) forged "sacred documents" off of a sociopathic, closet-atheist serial killer, that Hume's inductive incredulism may have been logically avoided were he only an inductive skeptic or an empiricist.

What I mean is this. Hume could have been a staunch empiricist while yet subscribing to the commonsense notion that, say, the past gives us some reason for believing something or other about the future. Or, he could have been an inductive skeptic while believing in the power of, say, pure reason to yield knowledge about “matters of fact and existence”, or perhaps a believer in divine revelation, or magic, or any other non-empirical (supposed) means of knowing about the world. That is, inductive skepticism says that induction does not yield knowledge about the unobserved, but it does not rule out other means of knowing about it – but that is just what empiricism does.

And so, the combination of both empiricism and inductive skepticism can only be extremely potent, necessitating the (Hume's) conclusion that there can be no reason at all to believe any (contingent) proposition about the unobserved; and this conclusion - as Hume himself admits at various places - is in fact the dagger through the heart of Hume's other arguments for the possibility of science, because...

the phrase “contingent propositions about the unobserved”, of course, must include all scientific theories.

(And that this is so must be doubly certain in light of Hume's arguments [beyond the scope of this already boring post] against the possibility of ever observing the real or ultimate causes of effects).

So, a final syllogism must be added to the chain above, one that makes explicit the inevitable relationship for Hume between inductive incredulism and the impossibility of science/knowledge about the world:

Syllogism Six:

P11: All inductive reasoning depends upon an irrational and unjustifiable belief, and must be itself then, as all the beliefs depending upon it, irrational and unjustifiable;

P12: Science depends upon inductive reasoning;

C6: Therefore, science, and by necessary extension all beliefs depending upon it, are irrational and unjustifiable.

This, as I began by saying, is quite a muddle, and one from which Hume was never able to extricate himself (and it is addressed by the prima facie "1507" argument I posted first). Indeed, this result seemed to torture Hume. He himself concludes, about his philosophizing, that

"The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what?...What beings surround me?...I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable conditition imaginable, environed with deepest darkness...I am ready to throw all my books and papers into the fire, and resolve never more to renounce the pleasures of life for the sake of reasoning and philosophy ".

I think I have now shown that while Hume at times sounds very confident in the possibility of knowledge about the world, that his own focused reasonings on the topic force him to a place - as even he himself acknowledges (as shown in various quotes in these posts) - where he can give no adequate (no justifiable or rational) account of how knowledge about the world can be acquired.

Little wonder then, that those who came after, and who began their own reasonings on Hume's arguments against the rationality of induction, should be led to the same place, regardless of how loathe or eager they might have been to fully admit it.

More to come.

[_Tal Bachman]

Tarski

Hell, I'll try to solve "the problem of induction" when I'm done if you want me to....(what is that, like, one in a 100 billion chance?) But even if I did, who would care? We could kick ideas around for fun if you want, though.

About the po-mo stuff, just a few thoughts.

First, I agree with you that using skeptical arguments to support a claim that knowledge is possible is a non-starter.

I think though that it is quite easy to misconceive of a few points relevant to our discussion here.

For example, I think whether some apologist or other "really" qualifies as a "post-modernist" (or not), or even whether the apologist himself would choose to describe himself as a post-modernist, is pretty much irrelevant. Like, check this out:

"Does Arnold Schwarzenegger 'really' qualify as a "Republican"? Would 'The Terminator' himself really choose to describe himself as a 'true blue Republican'? If he did, would that make it so? Can 'true' Republicans be pro-choice, pro-extensive environmental regulation, pro-affirmative action, etc.?"

I submit that these sorts of questions are almost meaningless in a way, irrelevant to what really matters (where is the canonical definition of a "Republican"?, e.g.); and I submit that what really matters, at least in terms of what we're talking about, is what someone says or does. Not what label he might "really truly" qualify for, or even what label we give to ourselves. There are people, like the confused radio host Van Hale, who claim to be believing Mormons, who don't believe that that the Book of Mormon is historical, or who claim to be believing Mormons, who do not believe in Mormonism's most authoritative descriptions of how human life began on earth. There are women who claim to be feminists who are pro-life, pro-family, etc. There are people who claim to be proud Democrats who are anti-gun control, pro-life, pro-war in Iraq, anti-affirmative action. For every kind of label we can think of, we can usually find some good number of people who apply that label to themselves, but who have views very opposed to many others using that same label. So, I think arguing about personal labels, at least in a discussion like this, is probably unproductive. So moving on from the label issue, let me address the belief issue.

I submit that the question of what some person, engaged in some sort of intellectual tete-a-tete, "really deep down believes", is also probably not even relevant, for this reason:

We have no way of directly accessing the intentional states of any other human being on this planet. (Call a particular intentional state, or set of states, {I}).

From this, it follows that that all we have access to is what others communicate about their intentional states. (Call what others so communicate [C]).

So, whether some person we might wish to engage intellectually "really deep down truly" believes in some proposition is something we cannot know, and it is therefore probably beyond the scope of our engagement. In a word, we engage with (C), not the probably inscrutable nature of another's "true" intentional state. Another way of putting this might be that for reasons of discussions, we assume that (C) represents (I), even though it may not.

It may not, after all, because a person may be confused about, or ignorant of, their intentional state; they might deliberately be lying; they might simply be very poor communicators. Take this last reason. Suppose I "really" love cats, but despite this, I say, "I can't stand cats". In that case, all functioning human beings will assume a particular intentional state of mine (that I hate cats), even though my actual intentional state might only be that I can't stand the feral cats who keep devouring the high-end cat food I put out for Fifi. In this case, I will not have been confused, I will not have deceived myself, I will not be deliberately lying, I will simply have misleadingly expressed myself.

So, notwithstanding that (C) might not really represent (I), when we are engaging intellectually, we are sort of confined to (C), aren't we? We are even confined to (C) when (C) includes subtle or blatant contradictions. All we can do is recognize and point out the contradictions, not necessarily know the reason for the contradictions. The reason itself, I submit, is most likely moot anyway, when we are trying to get at the truth of some other proposition.

I mention all this because my original statement dealt with the (C) of various Mormon apologists, not my guess as to their true intentional states. (In his weird snipes on this thread, Peterson continues to betray his conflation of these two things; hence it means precisely nothing for him to "deny that he believes X" or that he chooses some label or other. We are dealing with what Mormon apologists have actually expressed about their intentional states). My statement, recall, was this:

"Folks like Bitton, Peterson, McGuire, Juliann, sometimes base their church defenses on claims that it is not clear that we can actually 'know' anything at all."

This is a description of (C), a description which I daresay most people reading this will recognize as pretty accurate, if not entirely so. No doubt we will even be treated soon on this very thread to the spectacle of Mormon apologists claiming that "it was never official church doctrine that we can know Mormonism to be true". In fact, I think An Incredibly Humble Light in the Widespread Satanic Darkness of Non-Mormonism said just that on another thread. And last time I ventured on here, Wade Englund (no doubt even an embarrassment to the sorry likes of guys like Ray A) ended up claiming to doubt whether he was even conscious at all, a feat which not even Descartes himself could quite manage. A zip over to the MADness board will further reveal the sorry spectacles of Juliann and co., arriving home from testimony meetings or lessons in which Moroni 10:3-5 was quoted, just to log on to announce without any sense of irony that, say, "certainty is equivalent to knowledge" (which either McGuire or Graham, I think, said last time I was over ther!). In fact, the only Mormon apologist who I'm sure no one will hear from now on the question of what we can know, and how we might know it, is el Señor Peterson himself. Why that might be, I suppose, won't require too much imagination...

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah - (C) versus (I). I could hardly care less if Mormon apologists (or any other apologists for fraud) are deliberate liars, skilled self-deceivers, sincere believers, or a bit of one and a bit of the other, when the result is the same; after all, in the end, this is about what propositions about the world are true, and which are false, not about what some dude "deep down" really believes or not. Who cares what "the ultimate motivation" (other than for sheer psychological interest) is for someone to believe that Joseph Smith was, and only ever will be, the world's ONLY reliable translator of the Breathing Permit of Hor, if it is true that there is no reason to believe he was, and every reason to believe he wasn't, and that the potentially limitless claims of authority and sovereignty of his religious successors are totally specious? For purposes of these sorts of discussions, I like everyone else am confined to (C), and as even you, Tarski, acknowledged in your original comments on the quotes from Peterson, you - like I think almost all other people - regard the few quotes I listed as entirely supportive of the notion that it is not clear that we can know things (which you naturally, and I think quite rightly, associated with a skeptical tradition which includes Hume, Rorty, and the like.) So, with reference to some of the other comments on this thread, what any particular apologist's true intentional state might be is inscrutable to us; but when someone says, "I hate cats" or approviingly quotes skeptical arguments by Xenophanes, Karl Popper, and Thomas Kuhn, it is only that person, through his (C), who has taken up a particular position. Denying (C), that is, on grounds of (I), is a non-starter, for it only is, and can only ever be, the propositions entailed by (C) which we are discussing. And if it needs to be pointed out, it is only embarrassing to say, "I hate cats" doesn't really mean "I am not a cat-hater", and then leave it at that. It sounds like people who say, "You know I don't have a racist bone in my body, but these Vietnamese people are just horrible".

I find it excruciatingly telling that some guy, who's supposed to be the apologetic point man for "the only true religion on earth!", thinks that weird sniping along from the outskirts of a thread which he refuses to fully enter (like some 80 year old lady at a WWE match hitting a wrestler with her purse), is somehow helping him recover face over yet another cowardly flight (nice). I can only hope that those on here who, like me, grew up thinking that the church's apologetic emperors were as fully robed as a Cossack in January, are starting to figure out that they're actually as naked as Fanny Alger in Joseph Smith's barn. Mormon or non-Mormon, this kind of behaviour is completely pathetic.

Open your eyes, Mormon amigos! How much more obvious could it be?

Just my two thousand cents,

Tal

[_Daniel Peterson]

I find it excruciatingly telling that some guy, who's supposed to be the apologetic point man for "the only true religion on earth!", thinks that weird sniping along from the outskirts of a thread which he refuses to fully enter (like some 80 year old lady at a WWE match hitting a wrestler with her purse), is somehow helping him recover face over yet another cowardly flight (nice). I can only hope that those on here who, like me, grew up thinking that the church's apologetic emperors were as fully robed as a Cossack in January, are starting to figure out that they're actually as naked as Fanny Alger in Joseph Smith's barn. Mormon or non-Mormon, this kind of behaviour is completely pathetic.

Open your eyes, Mormon amigos! How much more obvious could it be?

I hope the "telling" wasn't too "excruciating," poor fellow.

The fact is, Mr. Bachman, that, while epistemological topics interest me, conversing with you about them (or, for that matter, about anything else) doesn't.

I don't care about your perennial puerile insults, but I do care about the fact that you've publicly and grossly misrepresented my views on this and probably half a dozen other fundamental issues over the past year or two, in numerous venues, despite my repeated attempts to disabuse you of your arrogant illusions. That's more than sufficient reason never to attempt to engage you in a conversation again, but, every once in a while, much like hosing down a street after the parade is over and the horses have passed by, it's advisable to clean up after you.

Now please get back to what has actually been a fairly interesting and substantive thread. And leave me out of it.

[NorthboundZax]

Hey "victim of unprecendented calumny"

If you don't want to be involved in the thread, stop sniping from the sidelines like a sissy. If you want to join in, be a man and explain exactly what your position is, and then defend it. That's what the rest of us are doing. If you don't want to do that, for God's sake, do yourself a favour and stop embarrassing yourself with the sissy snips...

Watch the fight, or get in the ring - don't throw jelly beans from the sidelines and then start blubbering when someone gets sick of it and throws some back. You sound like a classic, cowardly bully. Get in the ring, or stay out of it.

Totally pathetic.

T.

[_Daniel Peterson]

More juvenile insults?

Oh well. A leopard can't change its spots, I suppose. Nor a skunk its smell.

This is now the fourth time that I've appeared on this thread. Each time I've appeared has been in response to a reference to me.

If you don't want me here, don't bring me up. Talk about epistemology, to the extent you're capable of it.

If you don't want me pointing out your gross distortions about me, don't make them.

It's really quite simple.