I'm not sure if you are suggesting that the situation is the same with the intimation of unseen landscape in the Mona Lisa as is it when looking at an actual landscape?

I think the plausible mundane possibility that is being missed here is that the Aborigines had seen ships before the Endeavour.

Maybe like the "somebody else's business" cloaking device from the Hitch Hiker's Guide. It was probably just so fucked up and crazy to them, so overwhelmingly technologically advanced that their puny brains could not process, and so just mind-fucked them invisible.

That's probably what happened.

It's plausible, but La Perouse didn't arrive until after that date 1, and there are no other known candidates. (Having been told flat out that such an incident never occurred, I was glad to find that account in the original source.)

That's probably what happened. — Wosret

That's what I reckon.

I was trying to read your post and I only got a few words into it when it suddenly disappeared. ;)

I mean, they even had boats... it was just a different kind and size of boat...

One would think that an alien craft or species would be far more difficult to detect and identify if similarity to the particulars of experience is what's needed. Universe could be crawling with them, spirits, and all kinds of whatits, but their behavior would just be unintelligible, insignificant, or entirely unperceivable to us.

I'm not sure if you are suggesting that the situation is the same with the intimation of unseen landscape in the Mona Lisa as is it when looking at an actual landscape? — John

The actual landscape implies unseen landscape. Belief in the existence of that unseen landscape is not supported by any logic. Problem of induction.

OK, I think I get what you are driving at now. Just because we have found in the past that there are further hills and valleys beyond the hills and valleys that we can see, this gives us no purely deductive reason to believe that there hills and valleys beyond the present hills and valleys that we can see. Is that it?

If that is what you mean, then my reply would be that certainly no deductive logic supports such a belief. It doesn't logically follow from the fact that we can see hills and valleys, that there must be hills and valleys, or in fact anything at all, beyond the horizon. But I do think the conclusion is certainly supported by inductive and abductive logic, and that they are not merely matters of habit, as Hume claimed. All Hume showed, in my view, is that inductive reasoning is not deductive reasoning. Perhaps that was not so obvious in his time.

But I do think the conclusion is certainly supported by inductive and abductive logic, and that they are not merely matters of habit, as Hume claimed. — John

How would the argument go?

'All the evidence from past experience and the human understanding of geology and geography suggests that there will always be something beyond the horizon of any landscape. There are no known cases recorded where humans have discovered an horizon beyond which lies nothingness. Since this is the only evidence we have available to us, it makes best rational sense to trust it.'

Something like that, I guess. What if you had to bet your life on whether there was something beyond an horizon? I think you would know very well what is most likely based on past experience. This is not merely habit, but is practical reasoning based upon the fact that we never do find the world to be radically different than we expected it to be based on past experience (barring the occasional, apparently lawlike even if totally unexpected, occurrences such as earthquakes, tsunamis, car accidents, unexpected illnesses, food poisoning and the like). This makes past experience, although it offers no deductive certainty, a very good (in fact the only) guide when making inferences to what will most likely be found in any situation.

The problem of induction zeroes in on our faith in contiguity past to future. Even if we knew that X has always been true until now, that knowledge would not logically support the conclusion that X will be true five minutes from now.

Logic is not the basis of this faith. Obviously it isn't observation. So what is the basis of it?

I have already acknowledged that deductive logic is not the basis. The basis is inductive logic. They are not the same. Induction is based on past experience. The logic is that past experience is the best (in fact the only) guide that is backed up by any systematic reasoning that is consistent with our overall experience. So, it is rational to rely on it.

Past experience is an excellent guide, assuming contiguity past to future. But the challenge was to support this assumption. — Mongrel

Do you mean "continuity of past to future"? That assumption obviously cannot be deductively supported, but is inductively supported due to its being universally the case in all of human experience so far as we know.To supply an example of a contravention of this, would be to give a well-documented case of a miracle.

Logic is not the basis of this faith. Obviously it isn't observation. So what is the basis of it? — Mongrel

Pragmatism.

The logic is that past experience is the best (in fact the only) guide that is backed up by any systematic reasoning that is consistent with our overall experience. — John

Past experience is an excellent guide, assuming contiguity past to future. But the challenge was to support this assumption.

Again, there's wisdom in pragmatism, assuming contiguity past to future.

Again, there's wisdom in pragmatism, assuming contiguity past to future. — Mongrel

And since that assumption is all we've got, it "makes sense"--pragmatically, if neither deductively nor inductively--to go with it.

Embracing this assumption is a fine, upstanding thing to do. All the cool kids do it. That was never in question.

Embracing this assumption is a fine, upstanding thing to do. All the cool kids do it. That was never in question. — Mongrel

Well, if the question ia "how can we logically support the asaumption?" then we know the anawer ia that we can't.

Or maybe Bayes?

The problem of induction zeroes in on our faith in contiguity past to future. Even if we knew that X has always been true until now, that knowledge would not logically support the conclusion that X will be true five minutes from now. — Mongrel

But is there some "logical" reason to doubt that the past acts as a constraint on future events such that repetition becomes so likely that it approaches the status we grant "a causal law"?

There is a suppressed premise in you argument - that causation is a matter of direct control rather than indirect limitation. But a pragmatist need only presume that the past weighs heavy on the freedoms of the present and so future outcomes can become reasonably assured.

Or maybe Bayes? — Brainglitch

Would that give us confidence or just be an expression of our confidence?

But is there some "logical" reason to doubt that the past acts as a constraint on future events such that repetition becomes so likely that it approaches the status we grant "a causal law"? — apokrisis

I don't know. Is there?

There is a suppressed premise in you argument - that causation is a matter of direct control rather than indirect limitation. But a pragmatist need only presume that the past weighs heavy on the freedoms of the present and so future outcomes can become reasonably assured. — apokrisis

I didn't present an argument.

I didn't present an argument. — Mongrel

Maybe you have a short memory?

The problem of induction zeroes in on our faith in contiguity past to future. Even if we knew that X has always been true until now, that knowledge would not logically support the conclusion that X will be true five minutes from now.

Logic is not the basis of this faith. Obviously it isn't observation. So what is the basis of it?

So again, why should we believe induction has a "logical problem" (when it is viewed as the accumulation of a constraining history)?

I was just talking to John about a snake. I was trying to head toward the notion that just as the self must contain undisclosed elements, the world must also. Aesthetic imperative? Somehow we drifted over to wondering what the basis of a certain kind of confidence is.

There was also the issue of the transcendent viewpoint (from which one asks questions about life as if it's a painting.)

I'm a little baffled that you don't seem to know what the problem of induction is.

Past experience is an excellent guide, assuming contiguity past to future. But the challenge was to support this assumption. — Mongrel

I don't mean to be pedantic or picky, but I'm not sure what 'contiguity' is supposed to mean in this context. Do you mean 'connection between', 'continuity from' or something else?

In any case, I can't give you any more than I already have; I'm resource-depleted :’(

I do accept that there is no deductively logical entailment that because things have happened in a certain way in the past that they therefore must do so in the future. So there can be no 'pure' rational justification to believe that the world will continue to behave in a regular or invariant way. But, to repeat again, I do think we have practical rational justification to believe such a thing and that it is not merely a matter of irrational habit, as Hume claims.

I don't mean to be pedantic or picky, but I'm not sure what 'contiguity' is supposed to mean in this context. Do you mean 'connection between', 'continuity from' or something else? — John

You put a cup of tea to your lips. You drink it with full confidence that the tea won't change into gasoline on its way down your throat. You're willing to stake your life on contiguity. The question is: why? With this question, British Empiricism bites the dust. Rationalism does as well.

But, to repeat again, I do think we have practical rational justification to believe such a thing and that it is not merely a matter of irrational habit, as Hume claims. — John

If temporal and spacial extension are apriori knowledge about objects, could we relate that in some way to this confidence?

If temporal and spacial extension are apriori knowledge about objects, could we relate that in some way to this confidence? — Mongrel

I don't think invariance can be counted as a priori. We believe that nature is invariant because we have no reliable experiences at all of it not being invariant. We just have no reason to believe that it could fail to be invariant apart from the sheer logical possibility that it could be; that such a thing involves no logical contradiction. I really think it is as simple as that.

I read Meillassoux' After Finitude some years ago; and the problem I found with that book is that, on the one hand he is arguing for transcendental realism, on account of what he sees as a need to be consistent about wholeheartedly granting the reality indicated by the "arche fossil", and on the other hand he is arguing that the only necessity is radical contingency, such that the laws of nature could change any moment.

The problem with this is that if they could change any moment, then they could have changed any number of times in the past; and since our inferences about what is indicated about the past by anything, in this case fossils, is based on the assumption that nature has been suitably invariant from the time they are assumed to have originated until the present time, and since the assumption of radical contingency should undermine any such assumptions, and follows that radical contingency should undermine our confidence in any consistently intelligible and mind-independent reality even more than the correlationism he is wanting to counter does.

But is this really the case? Let's consider a couple of examples. The ancient Hebrew cosmological schema was the following:

Jewish-Universe2.jpg

This reminds me of the Truman Show.

In the Truman Show the world is artificial and is provided and directed by a hidden controller. Also the purpose behind this world is in the mind of that controller. In this scenario Harry Truman has no idea of the reality of his world, or the purposes behind its existence. However near the end of the film he finds the door in the sky, exits the set, meets his controller and is given the purpose of his world and its reality is explained to him.

This idea has also been developed by other thinkers and philosophers throughout history, here is another example.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flammarion.jpg

Perhaps there is some truth in this, pertinent to your question, a truth that we can step out of our conceptual world by meeting our controller(maker), being told of the purposes and reality of our world. But until we are told, we are blind to it.

It would seem then that conceptual schemas are fluid, and subject to revision or replacement after checking the world.

Perhaps they would change rapidly if a UFO arrived.

TGW would point out that we don't even need to bring science into. Human beings learn conceptual schemas as they grow up, depending on one's culture and education, and change them as needed. We also often don't agree on what concepts are the right ones. You can see this from endless disagreements in philosophy, politics, religion, etc which tend to have their roots in fundamentally different ideas.

Perhaps we can be taught to see the clues to the reality in the world we perceive. Surely the clues are there, were we to posses the eyes to see them.

You're willing to stake your life on contiguity. The question is: why? — Mongrel

The Janus principle. I'm reading about 'mood' which I'm writing about. Oddly enough this very issue comes up there; I suppose it comes up everywhere sooner or later. Ed Tronick, writing about infant moods, says:

I hypothesize that moods fulfil the Janus principle of bringing the past into the future for the infant... — Tronick

He argues in a footnote:

The Janus principle states that we use the past to anticipate the future; that we look backward in order to look forward. Looking back requires that there be some form of representation that carries the past and the present into the future in a meaningful way to guide thought, action and emotions. — Tronick"

His argument such as it is assumes contiguity, I know, but if there is indeed 'some form of representation' common to memory and now, and now again, then it would be surely quite a feat to argue that this form of representation doesn't necessitate contiguity.

'm a little baffled that you don't seem to know what the problem of induction is. — Mongrel

I'm explaining why a pragmatist might not be bothered. And that's because induction doesn't have to be true right now, just true in the long run. The "undisclosed" or uncertain is what gets constrained or minimised over time.

Hume may have argued the past counts for nothing. Pragmatism argues the opposite. The weight of history is the only thing that could rationally account for the inevitability of some expectable future.

The problem of induction zeroes in on our faith in contiguity past to future. Even if we knew that X has always been true until now, that knowledge would not logically support the conclusion that X will be true five minutes from now.

Logic is not the basis of this faith. Obviously it isn't observation. So what is the basis of it? — Mongrel

If we can't rely on logic and our knowledge because something might be different five minutes from now, then doesn't that place a major emphasis on our observations - in order to acquire that new knowledge? I mean if we already possessed all knowledge, then what use would our senses have?