Confirmation

[Grames]

Why is it that seeing only black ravens does not allow you to make a truth statement that all ravens are black, but seeing 100 black ravens with ABC123 on and 100 white ravens with it off allows you to make a truth statement that all ravens are black so long as ABC123 is on? Remember that we can't say for sure that ABC123 is the determining factor for color, or the only one. It's just that that's the only evidence we have. It's possible that we happened to pick all only ravens that also have some other gene XYZ789 enabled, just as it's possible in the first case that we happened to pick all ravens that have ABC123 on.

In other words, and replying to Plasmatic who said: "Until your "all" is encased in a causative context you don't have a valid generalization", we do not yet know what causes ABC123 to make ravens black (or if it even does). All we have are examples of black ravens with ABC123 on, and white ravens with ABC123 off.

To me it seems like, so long as we know nothing about genes and have no evidence of anything but black ravens, we can truthfully say - "all ravens are black, given the evidence at hand". If at some point we find an albino raven, that forces us to find more context.

In order:

• correlation means nothing
  
• an experiment controlling variable ABC123 and holding all other variables constant isolates and reveals a true cause
  
• all knowledge is contextually limited, so the claim that "all ravens are black so long as ABC123 is on" is not a claim that is the only cause of color in ravens. But arbitrary doubts without evidence cannot prevent the claim from being valid within its scope.
  

[Grames]

How isn't it also a skepticism of induction to not permit oneself to conclude that "all ravens are black" given the observation of only black ravens?

This is skepticism of correlation, not of induction. One of the methods of rationalism is to consider facts out of context, here that would mean to pretend that all we know is that ravens are black, and the universe consists of nothing but black ravens. But this is not what exists. There are many animals of a variety of colors, and individuals of the same species can differ in their coloration. Experience justifies the doubt that there could be a raven of another color.

[Plasmatic]

and I flatly reject the view that a hypothesis is just "guessing"

Yes indeed! This is a crucial difference between induction as painted in Oism and the arbitrary conventions/intuitions of Poppers falsificationism. He replaced causal generalization/expectation with arbitrary intuition as a basis for a hypothesis.

Edited October 22, 2009 by Plasmatic

[TLD]

Jake_Ellison

What method did you use to determine that?

(It appears that my response did not get posted; this may come up twice)

No method, just the concept of proof and that knowledge is contextual.

Given the lack of any evidence that some P are not Q, then one can say with certainty (conclusive evidence) that all P are Q.

What's an example of someone basing a conclusion on the potential of a conflict in the future? I browsed through the thread and I don't recall anyone mentioning future events

.

I was answering the hypothetical question. Ex. would be if one thought there might be a P that is not Q that he might see in the future, and he did not believe he could conclude all P are Q.

Also, your first and second sentences are not contextual knowledge. I assume you meant to have a connection between your fisrt two sentences, and the third, but I don't see how your third statement about contextual knowledge is related to your first two, which are a context-free claim.

That was an explanation, not a syllogism.

[DavidOdden]

If all the Ps seen are Q, then the evidence is conclusive. Given contextual knowledge, we cannot base any conclusion on the potential of a conflict in the future.

For evidence to be conclusive, there cannot be any evidence, even conceptual evidence, to suggest the possibility of an alternative. Since you are aware that color can either be part of the nature of a species or else not part of the nature of the species, you know that it is conceptual possible that Ps are, by nature, of various colors. Therefore you cannot conclude conclusively that all P's are Q based on seeing one instance. Thus the conclusiveness of the evidence must be determnied on the basis of the full knowledge context, not just the knowledge of Ps and Qs.

[Grames]

You observe the ball move through space and as it does, you observe the glass breaking. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that the ball broke the glass. You could have an object that is able to permeate glass and flow through it, or the impression of glass could be an illusion, etc., and the coincidence of the impression of glass breaking while the ball passes through the glass doesn't actually cause the breaking. Now you can then investigate the ball before or after the event to find out whether it's able to permeate solid objects, you could touch the glass to see if it's an illusion, and this will all add increasing evidence to the conclusion that the ball broke the glass. But in your observation, there is only ball and glass--no third thing, the "cause", that pokes up out of the two.

You have presented an arbitrary counter-factual (we don't have a ball able to permeate glass), an arbitrary doubt of the existence of the glass, and an arbitrary coincidence. The arbitrary can only be disregarded.

This last objection you wrote asking where is the third thing is truly bizarre. There is no third thing, no third thing is needed. The glass had the capacity to be broken, the ball had the capacity to break the glass, and the ball actually did break the glass. I have no idea how to categorize the error of looking for a third thing. It seems to be some kind of mysticism, the revelation of the cause is desired to appear as a separately instantiated thing, a big blinking lightbulb with an arrow pointing to it so it is easy to comprehend. It is just another arbitrary idea to be disregarded.

So if you had two competing claims--say, all ravens are black, and all ravens are between two and three lbs.--and you had one observations for the first but one million for the second, you wouldn't be more certain of the latter? Suppose you have two hypotheses, A and A', where A & A' is a contradiction so they are mutually exclusive. Yet we don't have any evidence for either. But we know that A entails B and A' entails B'. B & B' is not a contradiction, but B confirms only A and B' confirms only A'. If you observed just one instance of B but one million instances of B', ceteris parabus, you wouldn't be more inclined to believe A'?

B & B' is not a contradiction so no conclusion can be drawn. There are no intuitions and no inclinations in logic. You keep conflating logic with gambling. Why?

Perhaps if you were ever to be able to produce perfect evidence for a hypothesis about the cause, but that hypothesis will always require some amount of evidence which might, at some point in the future, fail to obtain--meaning you'd have to scrap the causal law.

Not scrap, add to it. Finding exceptions and qualifications is the only way knowledge is advanced.

How about by looking at all black ravens?

Because no one can actually examine all black ravens, requiring that inventory of all ravens is tantamount to a requirement for omniscience. Omniscience is not a requirement for knowledge.

Propositions of the form "All P is Q" where P refers to a finite and perceivable quantity, such marbles in a bag or birds in a cage, is not a universal claim despite the appearance of the word 'all'. The technique of enumeration wherein all of the individuals in a set are examined does not lead to any conclusion beyond the individuals examined. edit - The next raven may well be white, who can say? But if you knew why ravens were black, then you could say.

Edited October 22, 2009 by Grames

[Jake_Ellison]

(It appears that my response did not get posted; this may come up twice)

No method, just the concept of proof and that knowledge is contextual.

Given the lack of any evidence that some P are not Q, then one can say with certainty (conclusive evidence) that all P are Q.

Here's your first post:

It doesn't! But philosophically, one does not need to see all Ps to conclude that all P are Q.

If all the Ps seen are Q, then the evidence is conclusive.

It is not a given that there isn't any evidence that some Ps aren't Qs, just because all the Ps seen are Qs. That would imply that knowledge of one thing is not connected to any other knowledge, so our only source of relevant knowledge of Ps would be the largest inventory of Ps we can manage.

But, in reality, knowledge in no way related to counting ravens (such as biology, geography) will help us conclude that there likely are non-black ravens, even if they were so elusive that no one saw one. Let's take my thinking for instance: I happen to be so uninterested in ravens, that I'm unaware of any instance of a sighting of a non black raven, by anyone. Honest. So the knowledge I have, of genes and pigments and whatnot, is the only thing that leads me to consider the possibility of non black ravens. As far as I know, no non-black ravens were seen. What you're telling me is that based on that, I should conclude that all ravens are black.

But, in fact, all our knowledge is in some way connected to all the rest of our knowledge. I'm not sure why, but this quote keeps popping up in various media: “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” Is there some big Sagan related anniversary this year, or is it a coincidence? Did anyone else notice?

edit:

No method, just the concept of proof and that knowledge is contextual.

Sorry for the late edit, but I just realized that this needs special attention. Here's what proof is acc. to Peikoff:

“Proof,” in the full sense, is the process of deriving a conclusion step by step from the evidence of the senses, each step being taken in accordance with the laws of logic.

So my question remains: What law of logic did you apply, to reach the conclusion?

Edited October 22, 2009 by Jake_Ellison

[TLD]

For evidence to be conclusive, there cannot be any evidence, even conceptual evidence, to suggest the possibility of an alternative. Since you are aware that color can either be part of the nature of a species or else not part of the nature of the species, you know that it is conceptual possible that Ps are, by nature, of various colors. Therefore you cannot conclude conclusively that all P's are Q based on seeing one instance. Thus the conclusiveness of the evidence must be determnied on the basis of the full knowledge context, not just the knowledge of Ps and Qs.

No one spoke of 1 instance. All evidence means all that has been provided to date and integrated by the senses.

What do you mean here by "conceptual" evidence?

[TLD]

Jake_Ellison

It is not a given that there isn't any evidence that some Ps aren't Qs, just because all the Ps seen are Qs. That would imply that knowledge of one thing is not connected to any other knowledge, so our only source of relevant knowledge of Ps would be the largest inventory of Ps we can manage.

Given the original context in this thread, there was never presumed to be evidence except for the observation of Ps.

But, in reality, knowledge in no way related to counting ravens (such as biology, geography) will help us conclude that there likely are non-black ravens, even if they were so elusive that no one saw one. Let's take my thinking for instance: I happen to be so uninterested in ravens, that I'm unaware of any instance of a sighting of a non black raven, by anyone. Honest. So the knowledge I have, of genes and pigments and whatnot, is the only thing that leads me to consider the possibility of non black ravens. As far as I know, no non-black ravens were seen. What you're telling me is that based on that, I should conclude that all ravens are black.

Certainly not. What you can know is the observations/evidence of everyone else as well. No one said that by evading some evidence, you could draw a conclusion just based on your personal observations.

[TLD]

There are many animals of a variety of colors, and individuals of the same species can differ in their coloration. Experience justifies the doubt that there could be a raven of another color.

That is incorrect. Unrelated experience does not constitute evidence.

There can be no doubt without evidence to the contrary.

Certainty results from an assessment of the evidence for a conclusion - in contrast with possibility and probability.

P is certain if, in a given context of knowledge, the evidence for P is conclusive.

You cannot challenge a claim to certainty by simply making a declaration of a counter-possibility.

[Jake_Ellison]

Given the original context in this thread, there was never presumed to be evidence except for the observation of Ps.

Fine. What law of logic did you apply to reach your conclusion, based on no evidence except the observation of Ps?

Certainly not. What you can know is the observations/evidence of everyone else as well. No one said that by evading some evidence, you could draw a conclusion just based on your personal observations.

I'm aware of very few observations, other than my own. All the observations I'm aware of were of black ravens. I'm not evading any observations of non-black ravens, I'm simply not aware of any.

That is incorrect. Unrelated experience does not constitute evidence.

What is incorrect is the idea that that experience, of other species, is unrelated. Knowledge is not a collection of small islands of unrelated facts.

Edited October 22, 2009 by Jake_Ellison

[TLD]

Fine. What law of logic did you apply to reach your conclusion, based on no evidence except the observation of Ps?

I'm aware of very few observations, other than my own. All the observations I'm aware of were of black ravens. I'm not evading any observations of non-black raves, I'm simply not aware of any.

What is incorrect is the idea that that experience, of other species, is unrelated. Knowledge is not a collection of small islands of unrelated facts.

I implied that you would be evading if you ignored all evidence that has been reported beyond your own.

The principle is the same for every entity: All evidence for P points to Q, therefore the rational conclusion is all P are Q. Period. you can't talk about "experience" with regard to any other non-P, apply it to P and conclude anything.

Look at the principle, not the birds.

[Jake_Ellison]

All evidence for P points to Q, therefore the rational conclusion is all P are Q. Period.

That's begging the question. One black raven does not point to the conclusion that all ravens are black. The only thing that points to that would be all the ravens being black.

[TLD]

That's begging the question. One black raven does not point to the conclusion that all ravens are black. The only thing that points to that would be all the ravens being black.

Come on Jake, you know that's not what I said.

Re-read all the posts. And understand that one need not have seen all ravens....

[Jake_Ellison]

Come on Jake, you know that's not what I said.

I quoted you exactly. If you're saying things you don't mean to be saying, I can't help it. You did however write the sentence that I quoted, and it is begging the question.

Re-read all the posts. And understand that one need not have seen all ravens....

Not unless you identify the law of logic according to which you don't need to.

The problem with the ravens example is that context is unavoidable, there is more to ravens than their color. Since you already said that the context of the thread is that we know nothing, except the color of the ravens observed, let's take an analogous example that is stripped of all context:

You walk into a room, and you're told there are 1000 balls, spread out in various urns across the room. You do not know who spread them out, you do not know what method they used or if they used any method. You know only one thing, from looking at 999 of them: 999 of the balls are black.

What is, in your view, the color of the ball you haven't seen (which is in a locked urn), and why? Feel free to apply your principle, from before.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Jake_Ellison

[Plasmatic]

David said:

"If you really don't know what ravens are, then you are not deal with a hypothesis, you're just dealing with a hunch"

Reminds me of Peikoffs lecture:

"A valid concept is a green light to induction" highlighting the importance of Raven as correctly defined by essential charachteristics. A gen. Requires discovering the essential elements of the entities involved that are required for the given effect.

[Grames]

That is incorrect. Unrelated experience does not constitute evidence.

The genus of birds has many multicolored specimens, and a raven is a bird. It is related.

[RationalBiker]

Come on Jake, you know that's not what I said.

Re-read all the posts. And understand that one need not have seen all ravens....

Because one needs only go to wikipedia to find out that there are brown-necked ravens and ravens that have white on the back of their head.

[TLD]

Jake_Ellison

I quoted you exactly. If you're saying things you don't mean to be saying, I can't help it. You did however write the sentence that I quoted, and it is begging the question.

I never said 1 black raven points to the conclusion that all ravens are black. I don't understand your issue.

The problem with the ravens example is that context is unavoidable, there is more to ravens than their color. Since you already said that the context of the thread is that we know nothing, except the color of the ravens observed, let's take an analogous example that is stripped of all context:

You walk into a room, and you're told there are 1000 balls, spread out in various urns across the room. You do not know who spread them out, you do not know what method they used or if they used any method. You know only one thing, from looking at 999 of them: 999 of the balls are black.

What is, in your view, the color of the ball you haven't seen (which is in a locked urn), and why? Feel free to apply your principle, from before.

I'll try this 1 more time.

It does not matter what other attributes there are of ravens; we were only talking about color.

Your last example is not analogous. Black is a significant attribute of ravens; color is not for balls.

Ravens are not selected by man; the balls are, and the 1000th could be a different color.

There is no principle to apply to the balls. And one knows that all balls are not black. Etc.

There is nothing more to say.

[TLD]

Because one needs only go to wikipedia to find out that there are brown-necked ravens and ravens that have white on the back of their head.

We have been discussing a hypothetical. Ps and Qs - remember.

[Jake_Ellison]

I never said 1 black raven points to the conclusion that all ravens are black. I don't understand your issue.

Here's what you wrote, in a previous post:

"The principle is the same for every entity: All evidence for P points to Q, therefore the rational conclusion is all P are Q. Period."

That is begging the question. Your argument for why you're right is because all evidence says you're right. You never mention the evidence, and what law of logic you used to determine what it points to.

Black is a significant attribute of ravens;

You said the only piece of information in this hypothetical is that all the ravens seen are black. Based on that, how exactly do you determine what kind of attribute the color is?

Ravens are not selected by man;

Again, you are the one who insisted that, in the context of this thread, the only thing we know is that all the ravens sighted are black, and that no other knowledge about ravens (such as the stuff I mentioned, about their genes, the fact that they are birds, etc) is irrelevant. So where would you, in this hypothetical, suddenly find out that ravens are not selected by man? How does the fact that all ravens seen are black tell you that ravens are not selected by man?

the balls are

No, they're not. It's my hypothetical, so I get to tell you that you don't know where the balls come from. All you know is that they're there and black, just like all you know is that the ravens are there and black, in your hypothetical.

It is your claim, that based on all the Ps seen that you know nothing about except that they're Q, you can conclude that all Ps are Q. You applied that to ravens that exist in a vacuum, now I'm applying it to balls in a room, except I'm making sure they are in a vacuum, so the game cannot be rigged.

So here's my hypothetical, with a large number of Ps (balls in the room), all Q (black). Apply your principle, what color is the one ball you haven't seen?

Edited October 23, 2009 by Jake_Ellison

[TLD]

Jake_Ellison

Here's what you wrote, in a previous post:

"The principle is the same for every entity: All evidence for P points to Q, therefore the rational conclusion is all P are Q. Period."

That is begging the question. Your argument for why you're right is because all evidence says you're right. You never mention the evidence, and what law of logic you used to determine what it points to.

Evidence is not subjective. It's not my evidence vs. anyone else's. It's just all the evidence available to man.

Ravens (in the hypothetical) are observed but not put in place like the balls.

It is partially because, as you say, that I don't know where the balls come from that I cannot conclude anything about the color of the last ball. In contrast, Ravens (Ps in the thread) are presumed to be all black based on long-term observations by many people and the inability for someone to arbitrarily create a non-black one.

It is now up to you to show the group what piece of evidence you might have that says all Ps are not Qs when, in fact, all sensual evidence points to Ps being Qs. That is where this all began.

[Grames]

We have been discussing a hypothetical. Ps and Qs - remember.

Remember, hypotheticals do not exist, which is why they are so useful for making obfuscatory arguments and supporting arbitrary hypotheses.

[bluecherry]

You guys are digging way too far into unnecessary things here. This "there is a yellow pen therefore all ravens are black" crap is an invalid conclusion regardless of if all ravens really are black or how many you have or have not seen based on just simple error in the formal logical structure. I'm more concerned with the deductive problems than possible inductive problems here because it looks like this "paradox" was cooked up to try to perhaps attack deduction as flawed and any inductive errors are kind of beside the point on this issue.

“. . .any sentence of the form ‘All P are Q’ is logically equivalent to the sentence ‘All non-Q are non-P.’” Good so far. Here though, “Yet if the existence of a P which is Q confirms the hypothesis that all P are Q, then by the same rule, the existence of a non-Q which is non-P should confirm the second hypothesis.” is where things get going really wrong.

“All non-Q are non-P” does not add up to “All non-P are non-Q” just the same way that “All P are Q” does not add up to “All Q are P.” "All P are Q" is the same as "All non-Q are non-P" indeed for the same reasons that "All non-P are non-Q" would translate back to "All Q are P" rather than "All P are Q." So since we're talking about proof related to "All P are Q", then that means using something which fits the formula of "All non-P are non-Q" doesn't accomplish the goal. “All ravens are black” is not the same statement as “All black [things] are ravens.” “P” and “Q” are not synonyms here, “Q” is a constituent part of “P”, a quality which it is being said “P” has. Unless the “Q” here is the *essential*, the *defining* characteristic of “P” (such as if “Q” was “unmarried people” and “P” was “bachelors”), then “P” does not necessarily have a sort of monopoly on “Q”. So, since while ravens being black is a well known quality of them, it is not an essential aspect of them, this means your darn yellow pen (non-black –“non-Q” – non-raven – “non-P”) does not prove ravens are all black. It doesn’t even proven ravens exist at all like one raven of any color would at least, let alone that they exist and are all black. A formulated statement of “All non-P are non-Q” is just totally unrelated logically to “All P are Q”, ie, “There’s a yellow pen therefore all ravens are black” is a logical fallacy of non-sequitur.

[Jake_Ellison]

It is now up to you to show the group what piece of evidence you might have that says all Ps are not Qs when, in fact, all sensual evidence points to Ps being Qs. That is where this all began.

The way to disprove a false statement is through reductio ad absurdum. I did that, by substituting balls in the room for P, and black for Q, in my previous example.

As for where things began, here it is. You posted this:

It doesn't! But philosophically, one does not need to see all Ps to conclude that all P are Q.

If all the Ps seen are Q, then the evidence is conclusive.

At which point I asked you to back it up, because I was hoping you'll realize what nonsense it is on your own. I've been trying to explain it, it ain't working, so here's the bottom line:

The claim that "an n number of objects P have the characteristic Q, therefor all Ps are Q" is nonsense, not supported by the laws of logic. If you understand logic even a little bit, you should know that.

The idea that this changes, if those exact n number of P's happened to have been observed by people, is even bigger nonsense.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Jake_Ellison