I'm amazed at the delight believers show in repeating things that by their own free admission they don't understand...
This is probably going to sound snarky, but I don't mean it that way - I'm trying to puzzle out a distinction that I know exists in your head but which I don't fully understand. You say, above, of the principle of induction:
"I don't base my use of it on anything, I just use it, which is why I call it an axiom"
If I've elided key context there, I'm sorry - although I think it's worth noting that the context I take for the remark is as a direct comparison to my assertion that I use the principle of induction because of my experience that it works.
You also say 'the principle of induction is in principle unjustifiable', and claim this as a reasonably uncontroversial philosophical statement. (It's worth noting for context here that as far as I can tell you're using 'justifiable' in the (to me) fairly strong sense of 'provable', and that by that definition of 'justifiable', I agree.)
Unless I'm much mistaken, the principle of induction underpins pretty much everything that you, or I, would term reasoning. So you are using, for all your reasoning, a tool that you don't have any evidence-based reason for using but 'just use', and believe that there's no justification for.
I'm honestly not criticising yor for doing this. My own view of the principle of induction is, I think, fairly close to this (I'll reply on the other thread, but don't have time now), and my views on free will and consciousness also rather similar (if anything, they're odder, because I act and reason 'as if' free will were real, without believing that it is).
However, I would have thought that the views were at least similar enough in nature to someone 'repeating things that by their own free admission they don't understand' that you wouldn't find it that amazing.
Edit - just to reiterate what I said at the start, I'm fairly certain that you don't see the two positions as at all similar, and I wonder if you've got any way of explaining to me why. I realise that it may be as simple as you saying: 'no, I can't see why you think they're at all alike, so I don't know where to start', and if that's the answer, that's fine.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 10:17 am (UTC)This is probably going to sound snarky, but I don't mean it that way - I'm trying to puzzle out a distinction that I know exists in your head but which I don't fully understand. You say, above, of the principle of induction:
"I don't base my use of it on anything, I just use it, which is why I call it an axiom"
If I've elided key context there, I'm sorry - although I think it's worth noting that the context I take for the remark is as a direct comparison to my assertion that I use the principle of induction because of my experience that it works.
You also say 'the principle of induction is in principle unjustifiable', and claim this as a reasonably uncontroversial philosophical statement. (It's worth noting for context here that as far as I can tell you're using 'justifiable' in the (to me) fairly strong sense of 'provable', and that by that definition of 'justifiable', I agree.)
Unless I'm much mistaken, the principle of induction underpins pretty much everything that you, or I, would term reasoning. So you are using, for all your reasoning, a tool that you don't have any evidence-based reason for using but 'just use', and believe that there's no justification for.
I'm honestly not criticising yor for doing this. My own view of the principle of induction is, I think, fairly close to this (I'll reply on the other thread, but don't have time now), and my views on free will and consciousness also rather similar (if anything, they're odder, because I act and reason 'as if' free will were real, without believing that it is).
However, I would have thought that the views were at least similar enough in nature to someone 'repeating things that by their own free admission they don't understand' that you wouldn't find it that amazing.
Edit - just to reiterate what I said at the start, I'm fairly certain that you don't see the two positions as at all similar, and I wonder if you've got any way of explaining to me why. I realise that it may be as simple as you saying: 'no, I can't see why you think they're at all alike, so I don't know where to start', and if that's the answer, that's fine.