:up:

Right, the idea that the "laws" evolved has intuitive appeal. I never found the idea that they are given from above convincing.

Perhaps I should consider myself lucky I have a sketchy grounding in formal logic.

Why would I have to show X is absent if the claim relies on X, but does not demonstrate it's presence?

So someone can't objectively identify when X is present because to do so is impossible, but you are able to objectively identify when X is absent? Again, this makes no sense. Is it the unfalsifiable sophistry coming up again. — Leontiskos

If they can't show X is present their claim is vacuous. I don't have to show X is absent.

The sophistry is yours.

If you are making a claim that says, "no, not tout court inferior," and the racist is making a claim that says, "yes, tout court inferior," and you say that "tout court inferior" is as subjective as the color claim, then both of you are making merely subjective claims, and neither one of you has any rational basis for enforcing your claim. — Leontiskos

Not true. "Tout court inferior" is a mere subjective claim masquerading as an objective claim. "Not tout court inferior" is not a subjective claim but a refutation of the masquerade.

On your reasoning if we found an alien species, how would we know how to treat it? — Leontiskos

I don't agree with enslaving any species.

I'm trying to make sense of this in a 2 step process, because it avoids directly leaping from a set of evidence of past things to claims about the future, without any clear reason. Laws of nature provide the reason. — Relativist

But are laws of nature not codifications of observed invariances? That's just what I meant by saying that we know (or have every reason to believe at least) that past futures have resembled past pasts. It's just another way of saying that we have every reason to believe that nature's invariances have not been contravened in the documented past (at least).

I could have also mentioned the huge consistent and coherent body of knowledge and understanding called science, which is all based on the observation and modeling of observed invariances and regularities, as explained in more detail by

Wet is not the same as liquid, yet they are physically inseparable. Likewise, existents (i.e. things, facts) are discrete properties (i.e. events, fluctuations) of existence. — 180 Proof

:up: Yep, more good examples.

Why is it unsupportable? You simply ask the claimant what they mean by "superior" and go from there. — Leontiskos

Any support they come up with will necessarily be merely subjective, while it purports to be a universally valid claim. That's waht I mean by unsupportable.

Thus if there is some race which is equivalent to a beast, such as an ox, then that race can be permissibly enslaved. We would be able to provide the racist with a falsifiable case, "Okay racist, so if you can demonstrate that this race has no greater dignity than an ox, then you will have proved that it is permissible to enslave them." — Leontiskos

Such a race would obviously not be human. And you are assuming that it is permissible to enslave oxen. What could enslaving a race that itself has no concept of, or sense of, being enslaved even mean? Do we enslave oxen, or merely employ them?

I agree with you... @unenlightened is blowing the smoke of mere logical possibility. We know that past futures have all resembled past pasts, we have no well-documented occurrences of exceptions to nature's "laws" (invariance), so it is not irrational to believe the future will continue to resemble the past.

So consider two charges:

"Your position is unverifiable."
"Your position is unsupportable." — Leontiskos

My position is merely a rejection of an unverifiable, unsupportable position. It is obviously neither empirically nor logically falsifiable because we here are in the realm of values, not of facts or deductive logic. Values are subjective, that is they cannot be rationally universalized.
Think of the claim that red is a superior colour to green. I reject that because it is unsupportable, If I say there are no sound criteria for considering red to be superior to green, is that claim falsifiable?

That is an anti-racist claim, and we are asking whether it is falsifiable. It seems that you and baker have missed the whole point. I am asking whether @Janus' anti-racist claim is falsifiable, given that Janus has said that falsifiability is the key to rationality and claim-making. — Leontiskos

It's not that anti-racist claims are falsifiable. The anti-racist claim is made on the basis of the unverifiability, the complete lack of supportability ("there are no sound criteria...") of the racist claim.

They are separate in the same sense that a true fact, 2+2=4, is "separate from" truth. — Colo Millz

But again there is no truth without true facts, or true facts without truth—so I'm not seeing any genuine separation. A possible conceptual distinction does not entail real separation.

In this sense, JTB+U performs a Wittgensteinian clarification: it dissolves the illusion that justification alone guarantees comprehension. “U” distinguishes genuine justification from parroting, algorithmic correctness, or social conformity. Philosophically, that difference is now urgent—especially in an age where machines can simulate justification without understanding.

This is important, because it's easy to suppose your point is correct. — Sam26

I've taken a while to respond, because there is a fair bit of subtlety, nuance in this question about understanding. I agree one cannot be justified in believing something without understanding how the justification works—that is, understanding how the (purported) facts that constitute the justification entail the belief.

Someone could parrot an explanation of how a belief is justified without really 'getting' the explanation. It is very difficult, though, to say just what "getting" an explanation consists in other than the feeling or sense of getting it.

In What Computers Can't Do and What Computers Still Can't Do Hubert Dreyfus argued that computers will never be genuinely intelligent because they cannot understand context.

Yet the LLMs do seem to be able to do that, even though I cannot imagine how it would possible that they do that. Is it just a matter of parroting so sophisticated as to be able to fool us into thinking they do understand context?

It begs the question as to how we grasp context, and I don't have an answer for that, but can only think that it must somehow be a matter of feeling. I can't imagine a computer having a feeling for context—but then what do I know?

Anyway...interesting stuff!

Beings are not separate from being, and being is not separate from beings. Sure, we can draw a conceptual distinction between being and beings, but it doesn't seem to follow that being can be without beings or that beings can be without being.

It certainly seems to me something interesting to explore, but as you no doubt know, I am not well-schooled in formal logic.

I am also interested in semiotics, but having a few other non-philosophical interests and commitments which are important to me, what I really need is more time if I want to gain more than a superficial understanding of these things.

I suspect we are emphasising different aspects of the same issues, and that we do not have an actual disagreement. What do you think? — Banno

I think that is probably right. I've been watching a lecture by Russell on YouTube—finding it interesting, but there's a lot to wrap my head around.

That's an interesting account that certainly seems to make sense. If we are in the evolutionary middle, so to speak, does it seem plausible to think we in a stable era where the invariances are not likely to suddenly radically change?

I could reframe the question—if in logic something's being true entails other things being true (at least sometimes) can the same be said of reality? That is if something obtains is it ever necessary that other things will also obtain?

I agree. However, we could draw inferences about the nature of reality by examining the past, and apply that analysis (that model of reality) to making predictions. This is, of course, the nature of physics. — Relativist

Yes, and as I said earlier, such examining is all we have to go on, and so it is rational to base our inferences on that observation and its understanding and apply that analysis to making predictions. This is the nature of, not only physics, but science generally. I think this puts to rest the problem of induction.

Note that your examples concern our beliefs. There's a difference between the past constraining the future, and the past constraining our beliefs about the future. Bayesian calculus only allows the latter.

The other is Gillian Russell's recent work on logic, just mentioned. That is about the world rather than about our beliefs. — Banno

the idea that the past constrains the future relies on the idea that the '"laws of nature" may evolve over long time periods, but will not suddenly alter. — Janus

It occurred to me when I wrote the above that I am addressing only our ideas (beliefs). I could have written 'invariances' instead of "laws of nature". Do you think it is reasonable to say that if the past constrains the future it follows that nature's invariances do not suddenly or randomly alter?

I'm not familiar with Gillian Russell's work...will check it out.

It's ironic that an OP seemingly written by AI questions the intelligence of AIs. Intelligence is not the same as consciousness—to qualify as conscious an entity must be able to feel, to care. I don't think there is any question that these LLMs are intelligent, but not conscious.

Anyway, it doesn't seem to be a question of great importance, whereas what I wrote in another thread, which I will quote here, points to an issue I think is of much greater significance:

"Harari outlines a different set of problem here. We probably shouldn't be using AI. If we do, we may well become unwitting co-perpetrators of what may be the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. I never have and never will use them for research or for polishing what I write. Don't feed the Beast!"

Edit: On second reading I find that the OP is not questioning the intelligence of LLMs, but whether or not they can reason. Are they capable of being rational? Intelligence is not equivalent to rationality, just as it is not equivalent to consciousness, since great intelligence can obviously be applied to irrational projects. Since LLMs are able to synthesize information and produce original, well-reasoned texts, I think it is fair to say they are capable of rationality.

I agree with what you say, and for me the idea that the past constrains the future relies on the idea that the '"laws of nature" may evolve over long time periods, but will not suddenly alter.

Harari outlines a different set of problem here. We probably shouldn't be using AI. If we do, we may well become unwitting perpetrators of what may be the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. I never have and never will use them for research or for polishing what I write. Don't feed the Beast!

It's not true by definition that the future will, or even likely will, resemble the past because it always has. It's just an expectation based on habit. The only reason I say it is a rational expectation is because past experience is literally all we have to go on —which I think means it would be irrational to ignore it. For examples, it would be irrational to believe that you could jump off a tall building and fail to fall to the ground, but instead be able to fly, or to ignore the science that indicates that humans have contributed to global warming.

I'd still change that to "The future will most likely resemble the past because as far as we can tell, the future has always resembled the past". It's not a tautology.

Note: By "resemble the past" of course I mean broadly speaking. We don't have any reliable records that indicate that there have been periods where such things as gravity failing to obtain, time running backwards, the Sun failing to rise and set, fire freezing things instead of heating and burning them, rivers running backwards, people being suddenly able to breathe underwater, animals changing their forms, people and animals rising from the dead, etc., etc.

I still do not understand this. "We can by inductive reasoning" just is "the future will resemble the past". It's re-stating, not explaining. — Banno

I don't take it as being "the future will resemble the past", but "the future will most likely resemble the past". This is practical, not "pure" or deductive, reasoning based on what has been experienced in the past— as far as we know the future has always resembled the past. We don't know of any exceptions— "exceptions" denoting 'breaches of the common set of regularities and invariances'

To put it another way, it is rational in a practical sense to assume that the future will resemble the past, because to our knowledge it always has.
— Janus
That says that the future resembles the past, because the future resembles the past...?

Valid, I suppose, but I find it unsatisfactory. — Banno

To repeat, I wouldn't put it that way but instead "the future will most likely resemble the past, because the future has, as far as we know, always resembled the past".

.

We cannot rationally justify the belief that the future will resemble the past.

We cannot justify it by deductive reasoning, but we can by inductive reasoning—so the conclusion that the future will resemble the past is not certain, but is the IBE. To put it another way, it is rational in a practical sense to assume that the future will resemble the past, because to our knowledge it always has.

The "U" is a given—without understanding nothing gets off the ground in the first place, so I don't see how it adds anything when it is always already implicit in the JTB.

All that is perceived must exist, but it does not follow that only the perceived exists. Because it is absurd to claim only the perceived exists, insofar as subsequent discoveries become impossible, we are entitled to ask….for that thing eventually perceived, in what state was that thing before it was perceived? — Mww

Yes, we know, or can discover, what manner of existence things have for us. We can also ask what manner of existence they could have for other percipients or absent any percipients at all—but about that question we can only assess what seems most plausible given our understanding of our own experience.

At issue is finding a solution to Hume's scepticism. That is, how we can move from a finite set of observations to the "objectively best" general conclusion. We know that this is not something that can be done by a valid deduction. — Banno

All we have as guide is past experience, and what seems to work. Apart from instinct, it's all any animal has. Science (and not just science) is a vast mostly coherent web of belief and understanding that has evolved out of such practices. The "objectively best" general conclusion is merely the one most consistent and coherent with that general web of established beliefs and understandings. Of course we cannot have deductive certainty—that is what Hume's skepticism is about. That seems obvious today, but needed to be pointed out in the age of rationalism.

It could be "done by valid deduction" if there were such things as certain premises. Seems like "much ado about nothing" today.

His focus is on the advance of science through creative processes that are at odds with abduction. For example, scientific breakthroughs often depend on thinking outside the box and dropping theory-laden assumptions. — Relativist

We may have different notions of abduction. My conception of abduction certainly doesn't preclude novel thinking or "thinking outside the box".

I often hear it said that science doesn't progress through cumulative knowledge and understanding, but through paradigm shifts. I don't think it's entirely one or the other and I don't think the 'paradigm shift' paradigm is an accurate picture except at the broadest scales. How many historical scientific paradigm shifts can you think of ?

I meant to respond to your question about whether abduction resolves Hume's problem of induction. I don't see how it has any bearing on it.

As I understand it Hume's point was that inductive conclusions are not logically necessary, that is that induction is not deduction.

As you say "don't conclude that such an explanation is true". I agree with that...scientific theories in general and the abductive hypotheses that may lead to them cannot be demonstrated to be true. They are held as perennially provisional.

So where you say
There are not innumerable possible plausible explanations.
— Janus
"plausible" adds the unjustified normative element that lets confirmation bias in. You can now reject all the implausible explanations.

But further, in the context of this thread, do you take abduction as helping answer Hume's scepticism? — Banno

Well, why not aim for the best explanation one can think of? Do you deny there are better and worse explanations?

Abduction, at least in the context of science, relies on current accepted understanding, and the degree of consistency with that as a measure of plausibility.

Think about plate tectonics, for example. Someone could have come up with a rival hypothesis that it was the gravitational effects of the Sun and Moon causing the formation of mountains and the creation of separate continents. Or they could have speculated that it was the will of God. Would there be any plausibility in those ideas? Don't you think abductive conjectures need to be testable, falsifiable or at least supported by mathematics?

Ok, so what is it? — Banno

Abduction? Nothing more nor less than creating explanatory hypotheses. I'm not seeing the difficulty you are apparently having with the idea.

You've argued that science does not progress through abduction, which is a fair point, but that doesn't imply abduction is not truth directed. — Relativist

Science doesn't progress solely via abduction, but it certainly could not progress at all, or even get off the ground, without it.

You are putting a lot of theories in my mouth. I am not trying to defend what Kant said but clarify what I heard he was saying. Neither was I trying to defend what Aristotle said.

I am guessing that Kant introducing a new standpoint is neither here nor there from your standpoint. — Paine

I didn't mean to suggest you were defending Kant. Perhaps I should have been more careful with the wording.

I think Kant did introduce a new standpoint, and I also think doing that is always worthwhile in moving ideas along. Kant's standpoint seems to me to be superceded today.

That our judgement is, to some extent, a result of our nature established before our particular experiences is not, by itself, an observation given through experience. Kant calls that part thinking about what occurs "independent of all experience." — Paine

You mean that we are not born blank slates is not something we can know via our experience of ourselves? Can we not know via observations, both our own and via accessing the records of the observations of others, e.g., via ethology and anthropology, that we and other animals are not born as blank slates?

Also, referring to having a pre-cognitive nature as being a purely mental attribute seems tendentious. Physiological investigations seem to show that what is given pre-cognitively via the senses is processed by the body pre-cognitively, and only ends up being conscious experience on account of processes of which we have no awareness or knowledge in vivo. The understanding we do have of such things would seem to be all a posteriori.

Experience is prior in time to knowledge but the possibility for experience is prior as a condition.

In the sequel therefore we will understand by a priori cognitions not those that occur independently of this or that experience, but rather those that occur absolutely independently of all experience. — Paine

I'm afraid this makes no sense to me. I don't see how any cognition can be "absolutely independent of all experience". Can it be explained?

The need for the a priori is to explain why we are built that way. The need becomes necessary by the "altered method of our way of thinking." Otherwise:

If intuition has to conform
to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori
— CPR, Bxvi

The analogy with Copernicus is to demonstrate how mutually exclusive the two standpoints are. — Paine

We don't know anything of objects or phenomena in general a priori—in terms of what commonalities we can know about all objects without actually consulting particular objects in real time, we must reflect on their general characteristics as perceived. That is we must reflect on prior experience of phenomena in order to see what they all have in common.

We have before us quite different notions of abduction. Sometimes it is talked of as the process of forming an hypothesis. We know that, for any set of observations, there are innumerable possible explanations. Simply having available a range of hypotheses is insufficient. We must choose between them. — Banno

There are not innumerable possible plausible explanations. It is not abduction that might inform as to which explanation is most plausible but induction, which really just consists in the (vast) network of empirical knowledge we already have in place.

Abduction is simply the business of imagining explanations in ways informed by current scientific understanding.

Well, we experience phenomena, and from that we inter noumena. The latter is not experienced, and the former isn't something not us. — noAxioms

Don't we experience the phenomena as being other than ourselves? Why bring noumena into it?

Indeed, and my reply was to reaffirm that the testing of an hypothesis is not part of performing an abduction. Abducting is choosing the "best" hypothesis, on the basis of one's preferences - the very meaning of confirmation bias - the tendency to interpret a situation so as to confirm one's preexisting attitudes. — Banno

I don't think it's fair to say that the hypotheses that are chosen are merely a matter of one's preferences—to repeat, they should be consistent with current scientific theory and understanding. If you want to call that confirmation bias, then you'd better apply that judgement to the whole of science.

Confirmation bias consists in ignoring evidence that tells against one's preferred beliefs, and scientific practice should be the opposite of that—it should involve actively trying to falsify current accepted belief and theory and attempting to find better, more comprehensive hypotheses.

I had a quick look at the SEP article, and I didn't find it helpful—firstly because I don't think there is a significant difference between the two kinds of abduction it [purports to identify, and secondly because it seems to conflate the process of imagining hypotheses with a purported tendency to believe in them.

As I understand it, abduction is simply the creative imagining of hypotheses—and the next step would be to test them rigorously—if someone doesn't want to do that, but wants to cling to their "per hypothesis" that has nothing to do with abduction per se. So, abduction is not confirmation bias in any necessary sense, although of course abductive reasoning might be used to confirm biases.

you really haven’t given a validation of abduction. — Banno

It doesn't need to be validated. What would you replace it with?