The examples you gave were of horrible dictators, which has nothing to do with math. These dictators were not interested in reason, inductive or deductive.

Even math requires as its beginning inductive reasoning from the senses. Only if you have inductively determined what a line is can you form a concept of a line that can then be used for deductive reasoning.

Examples? Suggestions?
Thanks!

OK. I have an advanced degree in pure math. Math is not faith. Agree to disagree. See http://www.netplaces.com/philosophy/anal...

Inductive reasoning - reasoning from detailed facts to general principles. All reasoning starts inductively. The examples you give are not about reasoning at all, they are about faith.

Unschooled reasoning is filed under inductive thinking. Making broad generalizations unsupported by fact and experiment is part of inductive thinking. I am not saying inductive reasoning cannot be used for good. Just emphasizing how dangerous it can be on the macro (bad Jews) and micro (dogma hurting relationships due to no care of other person's needs). Maybe Ayn Rand dealt personally with some of this issues.

????Most of the misery in human history (e.g. Stalin, Hitler, Rwanda) were caused by psychos using inductive reasoning not qualified by skepticism?????

None of these people were interested in reason, inductive or deductive.

I would argue that senses (including brain) are measurement instruments (good read http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307378...). The author of the article does not seem to know about LoC when he made statement all deductive thinking is 'if A then B' type. Math number theory was a playground of wealthy mathematicians and produced prime number theory. It had no application at all at the time and was based on counting numbers, most basic. Today we use the theory to encrypt internet traffic (public/private key, value by $ of commerce). Most of the misery in human history (e.g. Stalin, Hitler, Rwanda) were caused by psychos using inductive reasoning not qualified by skepticism.

Here are some Rand quotes on point

Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses.

“The Objectivist Ethics,”
The Virtue of Selfishness, 20


Man’s senses are his only direct cognitive contact with reality and, therefore, his only source of information. Without sensory evidence, there can be no concepts; without concepts, there can be no language; without language, there can be no knowledge and no science.

“Kant Versus Sullivan,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 90

All knowledge starts with your senses. You cannot gain any knowledge that does not start from your senses, so everything including the law of contradiction starts with inductive reasoning.

First we must agree on definitions. New knowledge can then be gained by Law of Contradiction or directly. In LoC you assume an axiom to be true then derive a contradiction with existing body of knowledge. If so, your assumption is false. This can be used to better define core axioms.

what is right and what is wrong? how is your position not evil?
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube . . .

When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it’s picked up by scoundrels—and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil." Galt's Speech

wait. that seems amoral

You will notice that the article draws a parallel between instinct and animal-level learning and inductive reasoning. Both work, and for the same reasons; however inductive reasoning is far superior in how far it can take you: literally beyond our own solar system.

thanks for joining us watcher

"Inductive reasoning" in maths is actually a form of deductive reasoning, which rather confuses things. The article as it is addresses your other concerns.

Inductive reasoning is the only way to gain knowledge. Humans are not given concepts to engage in deductive reasoning, they have to create them. Don't confuse knowledge with omniscience. For instance, if I am building a small house I do not need to consider spherical geometry. Occasionally we will find that our knowledge is incomplete this is not dangerous it is a chance to increase our knowledge.

Nice find. Thanks.

Inductive Reasoning is very dangerous. There is limited circumstances in math where inductive reasoning works like proving a power series equation. The term "Black Swan" came along because humans thought there were only white swans until back swans were found in Australia. The interesting thing about Deductive Reasoning is that by changing an assumption, such as no lines are parallel, creates new theories that match Nature much better.

Ha. Yes. Matt Ridley's Dec article was titled, "Policy Based Evidence Making". We do have to watch about our tendency to make the facts fit the current political theory.

What I was thinking of was something quite different, though: I was thinking about the way Newton's colliding billiard balls - and the resultant 3 Laws of Motion - fail when the billiard balls are moving at near-light velocity...or when they are very very tiny. Quantum mechanics and Relativity have not negated the 3 Laws of Motion, but they have framed it in a set of parameters. Newton did not even know those parameters existed.

Jan

and conducive reasoning -- conducive to good
mental acuity!!! -- j

interesting. conductive reasoning :)

and the wonderful line between deduction and
induction is inventiveness, or creativity, in my view,
beyond which we gulchers thrive!!! -- j

I do think we are resistant to change and established practices. on the other hand, hair-brained hypotheses are pushed and agenda-ized including in areas which aren't politically sexy like modern physics.

We have successive iterations of 'rules of thumb', I think. As the frame of our observation changes, the former rules become inapplicable and we have to come up with new ones. (Not 'incorrect', mind you, but not applicable to the new framework.)

Jan