From wikipedia:
The problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning is valid. That is, what is the justification for either:
1. generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans); or
2. presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold).
The problem puts in doubt all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method. Although the problem dates back to the Pyrrhonism of ancient philosophy, David Hume introduced it in the mid-18th century, with the most notable response provided by Karl Popper two centuries later.
I'm struggling to understand it.
If there are 3 conceivable universal states, causality, not causality, and a combination of both, and everything I observe fits with the notion of causality, then would not Occam's razor have it that a better explanation of the universe is that of adhering to causality alone? Rather than some possible mixture of both states?
The problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning is valid. That is, what is the justification for either:
1. generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans); or
2. presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold).
The problem puts in doubt all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method. Although the problem dates back to the Pyrrhonism of ancient philosophy, David Hume introduced it in the mid-18th century, with the most notable response provided by Karl Popper two centuries later.
I'm struggling to understand it.
If there are 3 conceivable universal states, causality, not causality, and a combination of both, and everything I observe fits with the notion of causality, then would not Occam's razor have it that a better explanation of the universe is that of adhering to causality alone? Rather than some possible mixture of both states?
