Sarbajit,
Before I forget, induction is coming to a conclusion about the character of a class through amassing instances of that class. (Collecting swans that are white to show that all swans are white.) Abduction is amassing properties of an individual to show that that individual is belongs to a class. (This bird is white, water-loving, monogamous ......).
I probably deserved your raillery. I am currently besotted with the American Pragmatist Philosophers, who included Peirce (philosophy), James (psychology) and Holmes (Law) among others. If you want to get as besotted as I, read Menand, The Metaphysical Club. Key to pragmatism is the faith that if everybody thinks carefully, and follows good rational procedures, and collects data, the community of inquiry (or the law) will converge on the truth. Reading that book, and a biography of James, and many original essays by Peirce, I am struck by how much of what I have taken for granted in my life is of relatively recent origin and could easily be torn down in a generation.
I don't know how much you know about our politics over here, but there is actually a political war on rationality going on which is terrifying to me, and should be terrifying to anybody else in the world, given levels of fear and power that we combine. For example, we live in a scruffy little neighborhood in down town santa fe. The other night the little old lady who lives across the street was visited (he knocked on her door) by a begger. She has recently moved here from Texas. On her own report, she sat up the entire subsequent night, facing her door in an armchair, with a loaded shotgun across her knee. "I have a right to defend myself," she said.
Anyway, Please forgive my besottedness. I have been using an awful lot of bandwidth, recently, and it’s probably time to shut up.
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 8:30 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] So, *Are* We Alone?
Dear Nick
I'm rather surprised to learn from you that "the notion of settled legal opinion" is an American Institution brought about by induction.
By this reasoning almost everything that are "uniquely" American useful things - apple pie, Thanksgiving turkey etc can be ascribed to induction in addition to bridges, cheap food etc,
The apple falling on Newton's head could equally have been induced by him to formulate a recipe for Apple Pie for the masses instead of the Law of Gravitation.
Could you be a little more specific on what you consider "induction"
to be as I think you and Doug or Bruce understand induction to be different things. I am an engineer (aka. intelligent designer) , while designing bridges or machines etc I have neither the time nor inclination to consider the philosophical implications of whether my creation has feelings or free will. I just need to focus on my "grand design" and its purpose.
Sarbajit
On 4/6/12, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Dear Bruce,
> You wrote
> Uh, does there have to be a reason? I'm interested just because I am
>
> -- a portion of trying to understand as much about the Universe we
> inhabit as is possible.
> Are you obligated to? Probably not since your oral exam on your
> dissertation! However, when your PhD examiners asked you why the
> problem you chose was "interesting", I am sure you didn't reply,
> "Well, it just caught my fancy" So, was that a fair question at the
> time, or just a power trip to which you had to submit to get your degree?
>
> But my point is not really about whether you have to or don't have to.
> My point would be that in point of fact, you did [have a reason].
> Your explanation for your choices is way too powerful to be useful, or
> even plausible. There was reasoning behind your choice of research
> topic, and spelling out that reasoning will be, I assert,
> illuminating to you and to the rest of us.
>
> You also wrote
>
> I found that discussion massively uninteresting and irrelevant to the
> actual practice of science. There are many variants of philistinism,
> and of engagement.
>
> This position would seem to contradict the idea that interests are all
> the same and not subject to explanation. Doug challenged me in the
> same way, and I tried to meet that challenge as follows.
>
> AS to Doug's question, I guess I owe him an explanation of why I found the
> discussion of induction so interesting. You will recall it began with
> question of faith. I was interested in the paradox that those who are
> hard on faith, often offer induction as an alternative. But induction
> requires faith. And it also require us to join in a community of
> faith that shares our belief in induction. Such communities resemble
> formal religions in some uncomfortable ways. However, is that
> pragmatic faith in induction, which helped us build bridges and fly at
> faster than the speed of sound, and go to the moon, and provide cheap
> food for millions of people and, brought us so many important American
> institutions, such as the marketplace of ideas and the notion of
> settled legal opinion. All of this now under attack, by, apparently,
> people to whom its benefits are not self-evident. I think we either
> have to be prepared to say why our faith is better than theirs, or be
> prepared to be beaten all the way back into the Dark Ages. Hence my interest in the problem of induction.
>
> I would be interested in your response.
>
> Nick
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