That's pretty much it. Hume's argument isn't that complicated. How much simpler were you hoping to make it?

Just because stuff happened in the past doesn't mean stuff'll happen in the future.

It seems probabilistic If something stays the same for a large amount of time that increases the chance of a causal or law like status.

Knowledge of the future always seems problematic. But there seems to be a limit on what could happen to abruptly change a state of affairs.

Discovering a Black swan is the classic case but that is not a major difference from a white swan that would warrant a complete reappraisal of a law.

A philosophical essay, I published only today, tries to show that induction is unavoidably necessary, but always has the character of a belief or even of a "prejudice". You can find my text titled "Believing veraciously" in the "Internet Archive". There is also an older German version of the text.

Yes, I would agree. We begin my observing some regularity or habitual event of some sort (the ALL) that has been:

1) Experienced by us and others. (The belief).
2) Reached some consensus in a population (the brief that is regarded as a fact).

And then attempt to apply this regularity to some problem.

Well, I more or less copy-pasted the OP from the Stanford site.

I just didn't and don't get it.

After giving it some thought here's my version (the way I understand it):

Induction is predicated on the principle of the uniformity of nature (PUN)

PUN = unobserved events will resemble observed events

How do we proved PUN?

By observing events and checking if they resemble past observations.

But no number of observations will be enough to prove PUN because there's always the possibility that the next observation will disprove PUN.

So, PUN can only be proved if we assume it to be true. Circular argument.

Is my reading correct?

I don't believe induction requires the uniformity of nature.

I think you can replace uniformity with regularity. Induction is seen as a problem because of among other things the problems you state.

I think degrees of freedom is a good model. What possible arrangements are there to follow for a starting position. Is there a good reason to believe after seeing White swans all over England a pink swan will appear. I think induction is pragmatic not truth bearing.

PUN = unobserved events will resemble observed events

How do we proved PUN? — TheMadFool

It is a principle, not a hard truth.
PUN = unobserved events will probably resemble observed events

Finding an exception does not deter from the principle, it just modifies the list of observed events. The principle cannot be used as hard proof of anything since it is merely a statement of probability.

"How do we prove PUN to give a solid foundation to induction?
Note1: We only have access to observed events."

Well yes this is 'the problem'. Inductive knowledge is as good as it continuance. When it looks wrong you throw it. Deduction has nothing new in it, so is basically of little use. Induction is all we have to move knowledge forwards.
But there is no "only" about access to observed events. Observed events are everything; if only we would keep to them rather than fill our world's with made up shit we'd be a lot better off.

“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Am I off? Or can this be connected with:
"If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s nobody around to hear, does it make a sound?"

Or better explained:
"If a tree falls in the forest unobserved, does the behavior change when it is being observed"

These two propositions are far from being the same, I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar, will be attended with similar effects. I shall allow, if you please, that the one proposition may justly be inferred from the other: I know, in fact, that it always is inferred. But if you insist that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire you to produce that reasoning. [...]

All reasonings may be divided into two kinds, namely, demonstrative reasoning, or that concerning relations of ideas, and moral reasoning, or that concerning matter of fact and existence. That there are no demonstrative arguments in the case seems evident; since it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change [...]

If we be, therefore, engaged by arguments to put trust in past experience, and make it the standard of our future judgement, these arguments must be probable only, or such as regard matter of fact and real existence, according to the division above mentioned. But that there is no argument of this kind, must appear, if our explication of that species of reasoning be admitted as solid and satisfactory. We have said that all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and that all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this last supposition by probable arguments, or arguments regarding existence, must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question. — Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding, IV

I don't want to hijack the thread with something that is a completely different topic, but with that risk I bring up two problems I have had with "observed events":

1.) For many years now I have asked--a few times out loud--if any two observed events are in any way identical. Even if they are in some small ways identical, isn't it a giant, maybe inappropriate, leap in reasoning to say that any two or more observed events together tell us anything about reality other than their own individual selves? An experiment might be repeated exactly like another experiment, but they were conducted at different points in time and space. Are they really identical? One could have been done in North America and the other in Europe, but even if they were both done in the exact same lab, the lab is not in the same place both times (the Earth is not in exactly the same place in its orbit each time, even if it is the same month).

2.) More recently I have asked how do we know that the observations people make during observed events are in any way objective. It could be that only people who will report the same observations are drawn to observing a particular event. How do we know that the latter has not happened?

I think the answer to both is abstraction, and that language and mathematics both excel at this.

think induction is pragmatic not truth bearing. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, I believe that's one accepted point of view. I think it makes sense to be practical and just get on with it, so to speak.

Observed events are everything; if only we would keep to them rather than fill our world's with made up shit we'd be a lot better off. — charleton

I guess it's a human weakness/strength, depending on how you look at it, to want absolute certainty.



We begin with observed events and we see a trend - observed events are a good guide to unobserved events. This we call the principle of uniformity of nature (PUN).

It becomes the foundation of induction.

Note that it's not arrived at deductively. So, it's just an assumption.

Now we need to prove this assumption.

All we can do is observe events and check if they're a good guide to unobserved events.

But that's exactly how we arrived at the PUN in the first place AND we know that that's not adequate proof. So, the PUN can't be proved deductively.

Hume divides arguments into two types: deductive and inductive.

Deductive he disposes of directly by claiming that "The past is not a guide to the future" is not a contradiction, so "The past is a guide to the future" is not a logical truth.

So an argument that yields "The past is a guide to the future" as its conclusion would have to be inductive. But that's almost immediately circular.

So the conclusion is not only that "The past is a guide to the future" is not arrived at by reasoning, but that it cannot be.

Thanks a lot(Y)

You know how we know induction works?
It's always worked before.

You should also check out Goodman's new riddle of induction.

Also Carl Hempel's ravens.