Eiuol

Couldn't you say the statement is fine, but is incomplete? When taken alone, I see how it is primacy of consciousness, although I do know that I exist by being conscious. Before Descartes, as far as I can tell, no one even considered the role of consciousness in philosophy or religion as important. At least, in terms of a process existing to make sense of reality (or create reality in Descartes' meaning).

To a degree yeah, but you have said nothing about Objectivist epistemology. So whatever Objectivism says you haven't addressed anyway (you said you think measurement omission claims to much, but that's about it). You addressed arguments that aren't compatible with Objectivism anyway, hence why I think you give mostly straw-mans even if what you say is true, so your conclusions eventually just don't follow.

Oh I will get to the other one, you just seem to expect a lot at once, and it's hard to say what your objective is when you aren't saying much about Objectivist epistemology in either how it helps or what you think is wrong. Perhaps it's just your writing style. I say lack of patience because you seem to be dissatisfied you are only getting criticisms that lack alternatives just yet. Which ironically enough is what I criticize (from what I know of) Popper for doing. To me, my only objective in these discussions is how to get at good ways of creating concepts to investigate and learn about. Mostly, I just find some of your arguments weak for dismantling a concept (just as your OP here presents weak arguments for accepting a concept).

Your notion of inductivist is still vague to me then you keep making a new thread. Also I'm not sure why you keep posting it here to the degree that you say nothing at all to do with Objectivism, or talking about a particular stance of Objectivism (you said yourself induction is barely mentioned in ITOE and even OPAR), just a general "induction is wrong". And your critique to me is apparently based off the very thing you're speaking out against, which is using a set of data points to make a generalization. I sorta know what you mean by inductivist, but not really. All you did for me is write a list as though it were a DSM diagnosis. I propose not using the word induction, because this is not an argument of how to write a dictionary. If induction is only what you say it is here, fine, you're right. My preference is to not say "induction" and talk about formation of concepts objectively. I only use the word sometimes because it's better than the alternative words. I thought of a good response actually that is not dependent on data sets or probability in order to make a final stage for a true conclusion that's more like induction than not. I was going to write it in your other thread, then you posted this. And if my explanation ends up being what you call not induction at all, that's fine, but it will be about how to reach true generalizations of specific concretes (not approximations). If you just have a little patience, you'll get at least an alternative besides the arguments you have been asking for.

Curi, I'd be interested in a reply to my second paragraph because it's really hard to tell what your point is. What does induction supposedly achieve? What do inductivists (as you call them) claim can be done but actually cannot? It's fine to say how some people reason badly, but what about induction in principle is wrong? I'm not even sure we're talking about the same thing. If you didn't use the word induction at all, how would you phrase the issue you have? For the most part, I consider any induction to be the process of developing a premise and acquiring new knowledge. Even what you call "creativity" for coming up with new ideas I call induction. It may be right or wrong.

"Kokesh’s open carry protest stemmed out of his call for a “new American revolution” that would have involved a march on all 50 state capitols. The former Iraq vet had previously planned to lead an armed march on Washington DC on Independence Day." Yeah.... From that article. I don't trust InfoWars anyway, but in its own article there is (probably) reason for a raid.

Saying "each one is wrong" does not mean "induction in principle is wrong-headed". Anyway, it's a minor point. The second paragraph I wrote is particularly important.

First off, just saying "induction is wrong a lot" says nothing at all about a particular theory of induction, so at best you can say "most people are wrong about induction". Coming from you especially, "a lot" is weak in terms of a title. You have been quite clear that mere volume of information on its own cannot tell you what is true or false. Okay, it's wrong a lot - but does that speak towards a theory of induction, or induction in principle as figuring out some generalized abstraction that is true? Just as I could say "morality is wrong a lot", it's different if I mean a particular theory of morality or if if I mean morality in principle as figuring out what is good and bad. I typed this up as my first thought of why I don't like the title. If the main thrust of your argument is that induction as a concept is misleading, so it's better to just think of new theories of knowledge altogether, well, I'll get to that. What would help if you point out a specific epistemological mistake(s) the inductivists (as you call them) are making. That way, I don't need to concern myself about all the various theories of induction, and focus instead on a specific error. Sort of like how Rand pointed out specific errors she noticed about stances people take on the "problem" of universals. I'm not really even sure what expectation people have of induction that you find either a) unnecessary or b ) impossible to achieve. Be specific, because I really don't know. All I can say is "yeah, a lot of people are wrong. So?" If induction is wrong because it's seeking a holy grail of knowledge that doesn't exist, then induction is doomed to fail in the long run. You have a decent list of issues (at first), but no clear explanation of who an inductivist except "one who claims they like induction". This reminds me of someone saying "if you don't think the big bang as the starting point of existence, and you don't have any, you must be in favor of another kind". All that means is one particular theory is bad, but that doesn't require spontaneously coming up with a new idea. Even you seem to support that coming up with a criticism is good, even if it takes some time to think up a new idea. Perhaps a new idea will hit me in a dream in a few days. Who knows. You don't argue with it at all! What you can do you present a new idea, which you've attempted to do, but in my estimation just don't have even a helpful alternative theory. That whole Clue discussion just seemed to be arguing in favor of counterarguments that are in practice exactly what some have advocated here, including me. Some theories are just more sensible to look into first, and making 1 positive choice *implies* a negative choice for every other possibility you had thought of. By the way, although you might not be saying that I'm a Bayesian, I explicitly do not think that Bayesian inference can provide knowledge. I specifically said Bayesian inference is *only* any good for using it a way to figure out what hypothesis you want to begin with first. You could arbitrarily choose from a set of hypotheses, or you could choose a hypothesis on just some fast intuition. If you hear footsteps down the hall, it's possible that it's a burglar, or a coworker. You could just go to thinking "coworker" as a possibility, and go from there. The issue with Bayesian inference as a proposed means to knowledge is that it *cannot* provide certainty. I just consider it useful to use Bayesian inference weakly, so you won't need to consider all possibilities on equal grounds. Nothing stronger than that. "Maybe X is false and Y is true. You don't know. What does it matter that X has more support?" Fortunately, no one should be using this language of support anyway. And anyway, I only really use the word support in the sense of having a non-arbitrary reason to think X. If I am certain about something, I would say something more like "X is true because it follows from facts Z and Y". I would say "A is supported by N, M, P" for a hypothesis. Sometimes I should be more careful in this wording in my life, but I'm clarifying here that the sense of support you mean is the sense of support I mean. Support to me means "some reason to start on a preliminary piece of knowledge", nothing else. What you're doing is decently refuting how to *complete* a process of induction. What you didn't refute is using at least *some* amount of modal logic, which would include inference, "maybe", "possibly", "perhaps", etc. Modal words like that are fine as long as one doesn't say *based* on that alone that they've reached truth. It's just step one. "So what really happens if you approach this rationally is everything that isn't refuted has exactly the same amount of support. Because it is compatible with exactly the same data set. So really there are only two categories of ideas: refuted and non-refuted. And that isn't induction." Why does this mean induction is *ruled out*? All I see is you saying that thinking rationally at least using compatible elements within a data set. True. And if you stop there, it's not induction. Also true. Your point is...? "He didn't say why. I know why." You're a mind reader now? "For any set of data, infinitely many general conclusions are logically compatible." Only in states of uncertainty, so in that sense, yeah, many are logically compatible. If I'm 80% sure of Y and 20% sure if X, both are indeed logically compatible. Doesn't mean one should stop there, nor does it mean to avoid modality at all costs. "So now a lot of people are thinking: induce whichever one isn't dumb. Not the dumb ones. That's how you pick." Strawman! "There's a big BLANK OUT in the part of induction where it's supposed to actually tell you what to do to make some theories. " Using a rhetorical advice from Atlas Shrugged (where to context is totally different) in argumentation! "They will claim that it's OBVIOUS which ideas are dumb or not " Strawman! "How? Which ones? By what steps do we do it? No answers" I'm going to coin a new fallacy. The fallacy of immediacy. "If one doesn't have an *immediate* and *well-formed* and *complete* answer, they are wrong." Sorry, I don't have a complete answer. "There is no such thing as emptying your mind and just observing and being guided by the data." Yup! One's mind isn't passive, understanding the world isn't passive. I swear, Peikoff made a very similar joke as the "Observe!" in one of his lectures. "It's not just that thinking comes first " Confusing. Does perception come first? Does cognition come first? I don't think it's a good question, nor do I think it's useful to say thinking is first. First compared to *what*? "Induction says: connect the dots and what you get is supported," Strawm... Dotman fallacy! "We can use criticism to rule them out." No one said criticism is to be avoided. "But it's the only way that works." It doesn't work for language learning in infants. So... You started out okay, then it started to look like a lot of sophistry.

Yeah, I do think the latter is true, but I don't quite like metaphysical actuality as the terminology. I can speak of mass as a characteristic, but there will be mass whether or not I am there - such a characteristic is not an effect of the object that results in a relationship. Of course, mass is a concept and as such doesn't exist out in the world, but it refers to a non-perceptual characteristic that is itself not dependent upon a perceiver or other objects. "Mass" isn't perception, unlike perceiving color which is dependent upon a perceiver and other objects. Now, quotes that have impacted me (the second is close to what you said, but you didn't elaborate and I find "metaphysical actuality" to be misleading): From Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge Conceptualization and Justification, Gregory Salmieri, page 45 Each state of awareness, for Rand, is an active process of differentiating its object(s) from other existents and integrating information about it. Elsewhere, she refers to this as identifying the objects—saying that “consciousness is identification”—and she often speaks of it as a “grasp” of an object. The analogy to physical grasps is apt: though physical grasps can be described as states, they are more accurately described as activities we engage in. Thus, for someone to have a grasp of an apple, is for that person to be grasping it—something that involves continual (though minimal) action over time. page 46 "Form” denotes the identity of the state of awareness as distinguished from the identity of its object; it is how one is aware, in distinction from what one is aware of. Perceptual Awareness as Presentational, by Onkhar Ghate, page 93 I do not perceive, in separate snatches, blue, cylindricality, and smoothness: I see a blue, cylindrical pen. I do not perceive triangularity, black stripes, and swimming: I perceive a black-striped, triangularshaped fish swimming in the aquarium. Characteristics—attributes, actions, relations—are given in perception as the characteristics of entities. Their “separateness,” presentationalism [how Ghate describes Rand's position on perception] holds, is a result of a selective act of thought (which is a plausible reading of the Aristotelian account of abstraction; see also ITOE 277–79, 264–66).

Huh? Metaphysical actuality of all attributes is invalid by the same reasoning of the larger paragraph. The way I see the quote is that you can kinda-sorta think of attributes as "in the object" meaning they are effects of that object upon one's senses - no object, no perception of that object. I may be misunderstanding you though, Plasmatic. Are you saying that color, for instance, may also be a metaphysical actuality, or metaphysical actuality only applies in cases more where mass is part of the object whether or not it is ever perceived? The former sense would be denying the need for a relationship for *all* perception, while the second affirms that there are some attributes which are not the result of a relationship.

Actually, it's used to determine how strong to "believe" something, it isn't necessarily probability. It really just assigns some kind of weight as a matter of likelihood to determine at least what is most sensible to look into first. That basis is nothing but the status of your knowledge about the world without abandoning multiple conjectures, hypotheses, or whatever else. You did the same thing with Miss Scarlet, except not nearly as explicitly. Indeed this isn't math, but that is a tool of thinking. I'm not saying you are literally doing Bayesian inference, only that the principle is the same.

I said Bayesian inference, I didn't say the use of Bayesian epistemology as a way to, on its own, determine what is true. It is useful insofar as you can generate some kind of hypothesis or starting point, but that's it. If even your claim is that Bayesian inference is totally invalid in all ways, I think you are contradicting yourself, since you are implicitly suggesting it is valid by the very means you rule out Miss Scarlet - that is, there is greater reason to investigate Mustard over Scarlet.

Oh, I meant to say I'll get that for you later.

"But the simple version where you just suspect Scarlet without giving any answer to these issues is wrong, criticized, refuted." The point Don seems to be making is that there is no good reason to suspect Miss Scarlet committed the murder, which you agree with. "There is evidence Mustard committed the murder because his fingerprints were at the scene of the crime." and "Mustard's fingerprints on the scene of the crime rules out Miss Scarlet" means exactly the same thing, though. Neither is a claim to what actually happened. In both cases, Mustard is presented as the person who makes other scenarios less likely Evidence doesn't mean proof, it really just provides a reason to determine likelihood. I can concoct wild scenarios, but if you want to investigate, your best bet is to see what Mustard knows. This is how Bayesian inference works roughly where you use likelihood to make some reasonable hypotheses based upon likelihood, often taking into account evidence, but not able to generate "whodunit" on its own. I doubt you want a math lesson right now about Bayesian inference, but the terminology you're using seems to be the only issue, not the content of what you said.

I was saying only that "conclusive and certain" is all that we can call knowledge. "Inconclusive and uncertain" is not knowledge, but you can act on it in the sense you can use it as a starting point for a hypothesis. Also, there are some contexts where you won't be able to reach certainty, such as an imminent threat of violence where you simply won't be reasonably fast enough, just simply because it takes time to think out a plan of action. For a more practical example, if you were in a contest to finish a crossword within 5 minutes, you might not be able to finish because you are a novice and it takes you longer than an expert to solve. You couldn't even say "in my context, I know that X", because the only way to know about a crossword's solution is to finish it. On the other hand, you can say "I don't know the whole solution, but 1 across is 'epistemology' ". I think Objectivism holds this position from exactly what you quoted, as well as having listened to Peikoff's lectures and other things I've read. I probably can find some quotes for you from the new book by Gotthelf called "Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge". Or at the least, since I think developing one's theories is barely covered, I'm saying there is no contradiction.

A state of uncertainty is not knowledge. Peikoff doesn't say otherwise in the quotes even. "If favorable evidence continues to be discovered, at some point the cognitive climax will be reached. The conclusion ceases to be a hypothesis and becomes knowledge." This would mean that prior to knowledge, there is some hypothesis, conjecture, or whatever else that is not anything at all the same as knowledge. If it were knowledge, he wouldn't say "become" knowledge. Curi, I largely agree with your OP, although I disagree that you are identifying a mistake. It looks to me like you misunderstood what Peikoff was saying. You are right, people need knowledge, nothing less should be sought. At some point, there must be a precursor stage of knowledge, which you agree is fine. I know you also say one should start with a conjecture generated by some sort of creativity. Your disagreement comes in when Peikoff says that it is okay to make a judgment by weight of evidence when one does not yet have knowledge. I don't see the issue there. The point isn't that weight of evidence is sufficient or even required for knowledge, but it is fine in order to generate a conjecture. So far, you haven't described any variety of methods of creativity, meaning I don't know why you have an issue with weight of evidence in the context of hypothesizing. At least this way, you can start investigation in your journey towards knowledge. Weight of evidence is just one tool to develop an idea, but insufficient to reach certainty and thus knowledge. This line is true, and good. However, not even the quotes you cited suggest that if you are considering a limited set of ideas that you *must* pick one of them. If they're all bad, don't accept it, resolve it. That entails finding another idea to consider. Again, I think what you say is right, I just think Peikoff happens to agree too, and his statements support yours.

See the OP for the question on value. See post #20 for my idea of "privileged use".

Harrison, basically my whole OP says why a claim on "all grand pianos" would be too broad to define as property just as much as owning all of planet earth is too broad a claim.

Divided into two parts, part 1 at Don, part 2 at Harrison. Do you disagree on how I described property? Do you disagree about the *reason* I said Theseus would still own the same ship? How does my thought experiment change when you take away the immediately concrete re-building and use a *duplication* instead? Answer any or all of these questions. I'm repeating this Don because I really want to know. It's important to anything else a post about here, so it's important you answer these. If I've overlooked something you've asked me that you think is really important, then just ask again. You make long posts, so I forget to get back to your questions at times. It happens. Right!! My point of disagreement is what constitutes "one piano". Do you mean one kind of piano, or literally the particles that make up a piano? We're not talking about merely some dream piano Franz dreamed up that he hopes someone builds in the future. I made my scenario clear on the fact that Franz not only had a feasible plan of action, he also built the kind of piano. Please go back to my idea about if Theseus' ship still remains Theseus' ship - in what sense is it the same ship? I'm saying that the conceptual distinction of an object is the one that counts for intellectual property, but does not necessarily count for the piano object itself. I'm strictly talking about production, not things that have been created already, nor things not possible to create. Producing a design of a piano is a self-sustaining action to the degree the pianos will be made (otherwise it would be equivalent to a squatter - an invalid claim to property anyway), so I find it proper to say and allow that producer to say how the whole process may or may not continue. Of course that isn't the whole picture, but at the very least I don't know what you refer to when you say "one piano". There are several senses of equality: "Franz Brand Piano" and "Ludwig Brand Piano" and even "that green and purple piano with the Franz Brand label which I painted last week, so it is a different piano than it was two weeks ago". * Depends how "little". Did he glue a flowerpot to the piano? If so, then no, nothing essential has changed.

Explain then how Darwin used the critical method. (I'm gaining knowledge without criticism per se, but evidence. More seriously though, I want to understand what Popper means. ) I may have misread the bit about evidence, but you basically said evidence is optional. "Popper disagrees with both standard sides. He says we don't have to support our beliefs with evidence and argument for them to be rational; that isn't actually how you get rational knowledge; but there is a different way of getting rational knowledge." You gave me the impression you mean a method that does away with evidence; I can throw it out if I want.

Nothing is wrong with criticism per se, although you state there is a method to go about doing it. I really don't know what you are referring to. It's not a use of evidence, or any justification, or argument, or support, or proof, so what is it? If all you mean is finding contradictions, okay. That's fine. But it seems like that's all that Popper's epistemology is! That's pre-Socratic thought, where you come up with an idea, then people complain about what's wrong. If there is a contradiction, the idea is refuted. Rinse and repeat. This isn't *bad* to do, but it seems rather weak if you don't do anything else. I rather see it like people saying what's wrong with the political status of the US, yet say nothing about how to improve the political status. The whole process is inefficient, albeit useful if you incorporate more methods. Yeah, it is a problem. Fair enough that it's possible the question is wrong. Aren't you saying that the only method that does any good is criticism, though? It doesn't *fail* per se, but it's inefficient. Epistemology is about how to think *effectively* as well as acquire knowledge. The truth is, induction "under development" is doing a far better job than sticking with *only* criticism. The theory of evolution for instance was largely inductive, no? Yeah, it wasn't perfect, modifications have continued, but it was based on evidence, and support, and even some induction even if it was perhaps imperfect and flawed. Criticism can pick out minor flaws, that's good, I just don't understand how the theory of evolution has been so important and useful if you're saying that the very methods Darwin used should not work well. Can you use an example of your choosing of a case in reality where criticism on its own has been useful? I'd prefer you to use evolution as an example, but there might be a field of science you're familiar with. Again, I'm not saying criticism is wrong to do. Not using anything else in addition to criticism seems short-sighted and won't *help* discover new ideas.

I get that there is no induction, but what is creative thinking! I don't know what that means. I don't know what "criticism of ideas" is supposed to mean, either. How do I determine if what you say is able to eliminate arbitrariness? I presume by use of deduction, but how do I know if a premise of deduction is valid?

I don't know what you mean by creative thinking. So, I don't know how to evaluate even induction as creative, except that it's literally creating an induction, creating an abstraction. I'm trying to understand what you're saying. Since creative thought is part of a Popperian method, what do I need to do in order to be thinking creatively in a valid way? I'll get to how I think induction can work validly once I know what I'm even disagreeing with.

Then what's all this talk about induction being impossible or untenable? I'm saying your basis for opposing induction isn't that it can't be done, it appears to be that your reason for finding it false is mostly that you can't imagine how induction could make sense besides enumeratively. Since enumerative induction is wrong, then induction is wrong. Use your creativity! But the problem appears to be how does one think creatively? I would claim that induction *is* the act of creativity. In which case we're at the same place: how does anyone differentiate between effective and ineffective creativity? I suspect you just disagree about terminology, not content. So, can you clarify what you think Rand means by measurement omission at least, and we'll go from there?

"What "one person"? I've talked to many people and am familiar with the literature." Even if every person in the world fails to understand induction or lacks a valid theory of induction does not mean there is no valid theory of induction that could be discovered. You basically said "I don't know anyone who has given a good explanation of how to induce, therefore, induction is impossible". This is called failure of imagination, saying that because you can't come up with a theory of induction, there is no valid theory of induction. Plenty of people thought DNA was a completely ridiculous idea because no one had a good explanation of what life is based on. "Creative thinking. The power of the human mind, which is our glory." So... Some sort of elan vital not based on anything? This is vague. To make my point clearer, elan vital is the "thing" that some people used to think makes life what it is. But it's actually something almost *unimaginably* complex that leads to life as we know it - DNA! Induction could easily be just as complex, it's just that most likely, no one knows how to do it in whole yet. "But I don't think that's quite what Rand meant about "measurement omission"." What do you think she meant? Anyway, this is getting a bit disorienting. I'd rather stick to the measurement omission question.