--- aliases: [] --- #philosophy #causality #knowledge #epistemology #rationality # [[Epistemic status]] #shower-thought # Induction >The process of induction consists in assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience. >~ [[Wittgenstein]] Opposite of [[Deduction]]. When you see your neighbor stab his wife, you may assume he is a murderer. **From a specific observation, you induce a general [[Philosophy/Epistemology/Knowledge|knowledge]].** However in our society most people who never saw a [[Philosophy/Rationality/Models/Black Swan|Black Swan]] assume there is only white swans. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. > The principle of **induction**, as applied to causation, says that, if A has been found very often accompanied or followed by B, and no instance is known of A not being accompanied or followed by B, then it is probable that on the next occasion on which A is observed it will be accompanied or followed by B. ~ [[Bertrand Russell]] >To highlight this point, I have shown the spirit of the mathematician at work, and in three forms the spirit of the mathematician, and in three forms; the spirit of the mathematician inventor and creator; that of the unconscious geometer who, in our distant ancestors, or in the misty years of our childhood, built our **instinctive** notion of [[Space]]; that of the teenager to whom the teachers of secondary education unveil the first principles of [[Science]] and try to make him understand the fundamental definitions. Everywhere we have seen the role of **intuition** and of the spirit of **generalization** without which these three levels of mathematicians, if I may say so, would be reduced to an equal impotence. >And in the demonstration itself, [[Logic]] is not everything; true mathematical reasoning is a true **induction**, different in many respects from physical **induction**, but proceeding like it **from the particular to the general**. All the efforts that have been made to reverse this order and to bring mathematical **induction** back to the rules of [[Logic]] have only resulted in failure, poorly concealed by the use of a [[Language]] inaccessible to the layman ~ [[Poincare]] To my understanding, [[Poincare]] say that [[Mathematic]], cannot be fully [[Logic]]al, like some tried to say ([[Bertrand Russell]], [[Plato]]...). I speculate that most of the early [[Mathematic]] has been discovered by using the [[Mathematic]]al [[Philosophy/Epistemology/Knowledge|knowledge]] imprinted in our [[Genome]], when our ancestors needed to count mammoths in order to survive. And now we must use other way to push further our [[Philosophy/Epistemology/Knowledge|knowledge]] using our senses, [[Empiricism]], and induction. **We must then implement methods of high velocity [[Memetic]] transfer between our [[Brain]]s**, because innovation happens between [[Brain]]s, not within [[Brain]]s (i.e. [[Matt Ridley]]). ## [[Philosophy/Epistemology/Falsifiability|Falsification]] >[[The criterion of demarcation]] inherent in **inductive logic**—that is, the [[Confirmation bias|positivistic dogma]] of meaning—is equivalent to the requirement that all the statements of [[Empiricism|empirical]] science (or all ‘meaningful’ statements) must be capable of being finally decided, with respect to their truth and falsity. >~[[Karl Popper]] ### Induction is lacking [[Counterfactual]]s Induction only use what happened, that’s why we don’t see [[Philosophy/Rationality/Models/Black Swan|Black Swan]]s. Also, aren’t the positive samples usually more visible than the negative ones? ([[Historicism]])