DavidOdden

It says a lot about the kind of particle accelerators we must have for brains. A good thunder storm and we ought to be completely insane.

The expression "contextual certainty" is redundant: simply saying "certainty" suffices because the basis of certainty (knowledge) is always contextual (nobody is omniscient: we all have specific knowledge. In addition, statements are true of specific things). The difference between probability and certainty regards a crucial difference in knowledge. If a conclusion is merely "probable", that means that there is a lot of evidence for accepting the conclusion, but there is still some fact that casts doubt on the conclusion. Once you have dealt with that fact that seemed to cast doubt -- and therefore there remains no doubt -- then you are certain. "Certain" and "probable" are related, but they are not the same.

Yes and no. That is, "valid" is defined in terms of formal properties in a derivation, but what these properties are, are not given a priori. Within the realm of "deductive" logics, some derivations are valid in some systems, but not in other systems (hence certain proofs that are valid under garden variety predicate logic as they teach in Logic 101 are not valid for Brouwerians, namely the ones that depend on (AV^A). Inductive generalization is a rule of inference in some logics (esp. nonmonotonic logics) and thus in the sense you are using "valid", induction is valid. The syntactic concept of "valid" that you're thinking of does extend to normal reasoning. When I pointed out to you a short while ago that your notion of validity being restricted to "pure deduction" is circular, this is what I was referring to. From a formal POV, "deduction" simply refers to a specific set of rules of inference or axioms that convey properties about "ands" and "ors" and quantifiers, plus metarules pertaining to allowed and disallowed assumptions. But it is a completely arbitrary stipulation to allow a derivation that asserts a false premise, and disallows the rule of inductive generalization. It is just as natural -- no, more natural -- to requre that all derivations must be founded on true premises -- not false ones, and not arbitrary ones. In fact, that is a fundamental statement of logic in Objectivism: conclusions must be derived by applying logic to true statements -- to knowledge -- and not to false statements or arbitrary statements which are neither true nor false. This delimts what is a valid derivation -- your mouse example is invalid, because not all mice are black nor are all black things blind. So while I'm aware of the existence of types of formal logic that would label such a derivation "valid" and I grant you that this is the most common construal of the concept in academic studies on logic, it is not how ordinary logic works and is also is not the only variety of academic logic on the market. I'm also aware of (and practise) a different formal logic where such a derivation is invalid; and where inductive generalization is a rule of inference, so inductively based proofs are perfectly valid. In fact, they are pretty much the core of what a valid derivation is about. Setting aside the fact that all mice aren't black, you cannot stipulate that statement ex nihilo -- it is not axiomatically true. You cannot arbitrarily introduce an untrue statement and derive anything valid. So you would first have to prove the universally quantified claim, which has to be done inductively.

It does not say that. There are a number of places online where you could read about it, like in Wikipedia.

That would depend on the relevant facts, so there isn't a universal number like "100". A single observation suffices, if the conclusion non-contradictorily integrates with all knowledge. So as I say, what's the problem?

You're compressing too many problems into that objection. First, there is the question of parental responsibility: what obligation -- and rights -- does a parent have to prepare a child for a particular future? Should the parent have to pay for a university education -- all the way through graduate school? Are A-levels really necessary? Suppose Little Timmy has the potential to be a world-class concert pianist, but he needs extensive training to realize that potential. Do his parents have a responsibility to pay for this education? Fortunately for the child, generous benefactors often donate large sums of money to conservatories to support educating such truly gifted children. Second, voluntary charity would also be widely available for the truly mediocre child who has the terrible misfortune of being born to parents who have no interest at all in providing an education for their child. Since you see it as being in your own self-interest to make sure that the masses have at least some level of education, aren't you willing to translate that interest into charitable contributions? There may well be some irreducible core of irresponsible parents who just aren't willing to lift a finger for the benefit of their children's development, but that hardly justifies a massive coersive state bureaucracy to make sure that absolutely nobody falls through the cracks (especially since it doesn't make sure that absolutely nobody falls through the cracks). And third, education is vastly over-rated. It is not necessary to put kids in 12 year long day care to teach them "the basics". You do not need a Ph D in Art History to be a clerk at the local Sainsbury's and advanced mathematic is not necessary to learn how to draw a proper pint. Nor do you need a formal education to appreciate good art or bad politics.

The point that you are missing is that deductive logic cannot be logically validated, in the unempirical fashion you have in mind. What constitutes "valid deductive logic" is determined by fiat (which is why there is a difference between Brouwerians and non-Brouwerians). Nothing in stipulative systems precludes a logic from including universal generalization as a valid rule of inferrence, just as nothing forces the Law of the Excluded Middle to be included.

If you were to explain exactly what you mean by "logical validity", I think you would discover that what you're thinking of is a stipulated circularity. Induction is a valid form of reasoning (and logic is the method of reasoning). I understand that isn't what you mean by "logically valid", but once you say exactly what you do mean, you'll probably discover that by "logically valid", you mean so-called deductive derivations. But that stipulates that inductive generalization is not "logically valid": deduction is simply logic minus induction, so the conclusion that induction is not "logically valid" is a classical example of question begging. Empirical considerations are valid in this argument, except insofar as you try to define a system of logic that precludes using facts. So in fact the "problem of induction" is, simply, that there is no problem.

"Economic system" refers to a specific aspect of a political system, the part that pertains to production of wealth. The right to criticise the government, for example is a not an economical question, but it is a political one. The right to sell beer is an economic one. The concepts are in the genus / species relationship.

Is this a matter that is up for a vote? Or just a Metro edict? (I strongly suspect the latter). I can't get a straight story and inquiring minds who aren't there anymore want to know.

This question actually confuses me, strangely enough. The answer is "obviously yes", so maybe I don't understand the implications of your question, or maybe this really is the "What should I do?" question. If you have a copy of "Philosophy: Who Needs It" you should look at the essay "What can one do?". Speaking very broadly, you should try to engage others in rational discussion. Exactly how to do that depends on your particular circumstances, but surely you interact with other humans and some of the time they say stupid things like "It would be better if those big heartless companies would just give a decent nonexplotive living wage to their workers". Rather than silently thinking "God, why do I even bother to know these people?", you should say something. The secret is, most people who babble these kinds of leftist platitudes don't actually believe this nonsense, they are just looking for a warm, fuzzy pat on the back and some psychological reinforcement. You can do miraculous things by simply gently opposing such nonsense, forcing them to check their assumptions. Nobody actually likes that nonsense, so it can be a positive thing to let them know that The Standard Nonsense is not believed by all. Now, to directly answer your question: don't use a shotgun to force people to talk to you.

I wish you were right, but I'm willing to bet that it would survive a court challenge ($100: I'm serious). There is actually a state law that requires the county to engage in this silliness / arbitrariness. My reading of the changes in the existing ordinances is that it is essentially incomprehensible, but not vague (for example, the definition of Category IV wetlands is hard to parse and it does require reference to governmentally dictated lists which are subject to change; but it doesn't seem vague). I don't know if there have been any successful legal challenges to zoning ordinances and the like, but a similar legal challenge by property owners in Snohomish county (just to the north) failed many moons ago, the result being that we essentially lost property via these "wetlands preservation" ordinances that prevented any use of the land. Still have to pay the damn taxes, though.

Since politicians speak of freedom from hunger (welfare), freedom of education (state supported education), freedom of expression (governmentally subsidised outlets for art) and freedom to take a vacation in a national part (more taxpayer subsidies), I think politicians use "freedom" to mean "coersively supported entitlement"). And of course there is freedom from sexual harassment, freedom from fear of being gunned down (aka gun control). Lord save me from all these freedoms. I don't think you'll find "liberty" used in the same kinds of extreme concept-twisting perversions. But more to the point, the meanings of "freedom" and "liberty" are not to be determined by the propaganda-mongers who inform us that freedom is slavery. Freedom and liberty refer to the same thing, and differ only in their etymological source.

Pick a conservative; it doesn't matter who, just find one. Rush Limbaugh, Brent Bozell, Ronald Reagan, whatever. Buckley is one of them. His main interest is being a Catholic. He is rather smart and has a sharp tongue, which is is main claim to fame. Some people out there claim he was "victorious" over Objectivism; at any rate, he was thoroughly anti-Objectivist.

<nitpick> Buttinsky here. I don't think that your knowledge of a thing's identity has any influence on what it can and cannot do. But it does determine whether you know what it can and cannot do. This is why bumblebees were able to fly, for I suppose hundreds of millions of years, before we sorted out the physics of bumblebee flight. </nitpick>

If you want to see the details, you can read a mass of bureaucratese. I offer $100 to the first person who can read through the proposal and actually say what the law is. And I think this is how it might come to be. Nobody can possibly comprehend this law (a revision of an existing law), and it seems to give The People what they all want, namely a lovely place to live (and it really is lovely). So how can anyone argue against it? I mean, unless you happen to own some land that you suddenly can't do anything with, rendering it worthless. So all the county has to do is persuade enough people that it will have a minimal impact on ordinary people, and it won;t affect you . One fact that should be of some cheer is that the idea has been kicking around for over 3 years.

I don't know where his body is interred, but he was at MIT up to '91. You shouldn't be too surprised that this comes from a college professor (one who abandoned the serious study of physics in a fit of navel contemplation). Where else would it be coming from? You also shouldn't be looking for schools that are free of this kind of irrationality -- seek it out, and combat it. Ignoring it won't make it disappear. Try out David Stove's essay: Popper and After

That may be so, but there has to be a point at which you stop pointing out errors to a person and realise that they are fundamentally not working towards the same goal that you are working towards. Expulsion only makes sense in terms of property, so for example expulsion does make sense in the context of something like HBL, where people pay real money (well, fake money but as real as it can be since we turned to counterfeit money) for a particular product. You can't "expel" a person from Objectivism because it is an idea, not property: but you can disassociate yourself from certain others claiming to be Objectivists. The fundamental question that has to be answered, if you are dealing with someone espousing bad ideas, is what it will take to persuade you that they are not just uninformed about some point, but are just plain corrupt at the core.

Of course the fourth step is irrelevant so it should be dropped. As I said in the previous point, the premises needed to get to the third line are insufficient (though necessary), and with those premises included (the most important being that all of the observations noncontradictorily integrate at the conclusion) the integration is valid. I don't see in what way this masquerades as a deduction. Inductive generalization is not a deduction.

The key is this:

I don't understand your answer. I presume you hold that if you did not know of the facts disproving the sun and swan claims, you should still reject the conclusion. That would mean that no statement "all X's are Y" can be valid, and that the only valid statements are cataloguing statements like "All X's that I have observed have turned out to be Y", with no claim that this knowledge has value for future observations. Surely (?) that's not what you're arguing.

We know that these two conclusion (daily sun rising, swan color) are actually, factually false so given knowledge of the relevant facts, deriving those conclusions is of course invalid. But knowledge -- thus conclusions -- are contextual. If you are speaking of the knowledge context where we know the concretes than invalidate the conclusion, then there is no question that your assessment is correct. But not everybody has that knowledge: so for such a person, are you claiming that the conclusion is still invalid? (And if so, why?)

Oh, I noticed that you misspelled Iraq as "Iran" in the topic, at least I think it was misspelling and not irony, which would also be appropriate.

You have my sympathies and best wishes. I hope that your fears about Hussein being freed are unfounded -- even if he were freed, how would he get power again? The bigger fear, I think, would be exactly the horror of unbridled democracy turning the country into a Shiite theocracy. The provisional constitution makes it less likely, given the undemocratic super-majority provisions, for Sunni and Shiite Arabs to beat up on the Kurds. But this isn't likely to survive in the long run. I don't know what the current US immigration policy is; unfortunately, it probably now makes immigration next to impossible, since political asylum is no longer a viable argument. My opinion is that it is most important in the final constitution that Islam not be declared the state religion, and Iraq not be declared an Arab nation. Article 7 of the provisional constitution has to go.

This is discussed in "The Ethics of Emergencies" in Virtue of Selfishness. Here is an except: The extreme scenario that you propose supposes that somebody must die. What kind of situation do you have in mind? If you're talking about running into a burning uilding, you can't really assume that you will die to save a trapped loved one. If you die before you extracate them, that would be totally pointless self-sacrifice. The assumption has to be that you won't die, but you recognise that there is a possibility that you will die. The value you place on the loved one bears on what risk you are willing to take. Rand mentions a further important consideration: "If it is the man or woman one loves, then one can be willing to give one's own life to save him or her—for the selfish reason that life without the loved person could be unbearable". This is not to be thrown about lightly, but it is a legitimate reason to be willing to die for someone else.