Ok. So now it’s probably time for me to admit that as Faith goes, belief in induction is pretty weak tea.
Certainly doesn’t compare with the belief that ritual can change wine in to blood.
Now, I think it’s easy to show that even catholics don’t believe it, using the pragmatic maxim that any thought is not a belief unless it can be shown to guide behavior.
Let us say that christ’s body is exhumed and that its perfectly preserved. The priest comes to you with a cup and a plate and says “thisis the blood and body. Etc.” I think your response, catholic or not, would be OH YUCH!
The logic goes
Catholics will consume what they think is the blood and body of Christ
This is the blood and body of Christ
This catholic did not consume it.
TILT!
My apologies to any catholics on the list . this is one of the examples in Peirce’s work and it is much on my mind at the moment. I hope I have represented the facts of the ritiual more or less correctly and not been …. Um …too flippant or clever. I am pretty tired and it is pretty late.
Nick
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 11:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Cc: Owen Densmore
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Clarifying Induction Threads
The inductive argument for induction [paraphrased from Eric]: The fact that induction has been so successful in the past should convince of its usefulness in the future.
-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
Google voice: <a href="tel:747-999-5105" value="+17479995105" target="_blank">747-999-5105vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:49 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:
Owen,
As I understand it:
Doug announced his ordination. After a bit of banter, Doug made some generalizations about religious and non-religious people based on his past experience.... but... the ability to draw conclusions from past experience is a bit philosophically mysterious. The seeming contradiction between Doug's disavowal of faith and his drawing of conclusion based on induction set off Nick. Nick attempted to draw Doug into an open admittance that he accepted the truth of induction as an act of faith. But Nick never quite got what he was looking for, and this lead to several somewhat confused sub-threads. Eventually Nick just laid the problem out himself. However, this also confused people because, 1) the term 'induction' is used in many different contexts (e.g., to induce an electric current through a wire), and 2) there is lots of past evidence supporting the effectiveness of induction.
The big, big, big problem of induction, however, is that point 2 has no clear role in the discussion: If the problem of induction is accepted, then no amount of past success provides any evidence that induction will continue to work into the future. That is, just as the fact that I have opened my eyes every day for the past many years is no guarantee that I will open my eyes tomorrow, the fact that scientists have used induction successfully the past many centuries is no guarantee that induction will continue to work in the next century.
These threads have now devolved into a few discussions centered around accidentally or intentionally clever statements made in the course conversation, as well as a discussion in which people can't understand why we wouldn't simply accept induction based on its past success. The latter are of the form "Doesn't the fact that induction is a common method in such-and-such field of inquiry prove its worth?"
Hope that helps,
Eric
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 10:05 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:Could anyone summarize the recent several thread that originated with this one?
I'm sorry to have to ask, but we seem to have exploded upon an interesting stunt, but with the multiple threads (I Am The Thread Fascist) and the various twists and turns, I'd sorta like to know what's up!
-- Owen
============================================================FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.orgEric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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