David Hume and the Problem of Induction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ส.ค. 2020
- We often use inductive reasoning-especially in science. But David Hume, an 18th century Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, identified a puzzle about such reasoning. It rests on an unjustified assumption. So induction might be a good form of reasoning, but we don't have good reason for believing it. This is the problem of induction.
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Can you think why we should believe that "the future will behave like the past" without using induction?
Nope - I simply Kant, man
@Pro Tengu interesting point! Hume also had a skeptical argument about how we never actually see causation. We just see sequential events and infer causation. So I wonder if that’ll solve the problem or lead to a similar one.
If you base the reasoning on a statistically significant amount of controlled experiments leading to the same result.
@Pro Tengu - True but you’re overlooking the key piece here which is statistical significance, also in conjunction with probability (which are related concepts). Science tries to derive laws based on repeated controlled experiments which result in essentially a probability of a predicted result. This is much more than just perception and in fact is meant to trump perception.
@Pro Tengu That is definitely not my understanding of what science does. The proof you say is lacking, is found in the statistical significance and probability of a result following a set of preconditions. Laws are derived from this, until proven otherwise by more experimentation. That’s the charter of science, which is based on a foundation of logic.
Now if you say that logic itself is also based on a purely human construct, and that there is no universal truth, only truth as defined by our own constructs, then yes I would agree with that.
You couldnt make a better way of getting to the point so quick ! Thanks!
I encourage everyone to look up Greg Bahnsen's 1980s debates where he puts forward a strong argument for the law of induction.
Greg Bahnsen 🙏🏻💯
The problem of induction can actually be made stronger when we take memories into consideration. We can say that our memory is fallible, so how do we know we are remembering the past correctly? If we say we remember our memory working we are just using circular reasoning. Therefore the statement “the future will behave like the past,” (the uniformity of nature) is even more unjustified since we can’t know if we can accurately recall the past. So induction is even worse than Hume originally thought because he thought induction could give us probabilities but with this it is impossible to create probabilities.
Bro stop you're giving everyone existential crises
But we can keep records of things that have happened in the past to get around this issue. We've been doing this for thousands of years.
Besides, the problem of induction outlines the inherent fallibility of knowledge. It doesn't discount the predictive power of induction. Hume may doubt cause and effect but how could science function without the assumption?
@duder6387. It's even worse than you think, because any argument about induction relies on the unjustified belief that words have meaning and map onto reality.
@@aaronp8874 But that assumes the myth of the given
This looks more like a video about circular reasoning than induction.
great video! you should do one on Hume's critique of causality!
Underrated channel
Keep up the good work 👍
Nice and concise
Great video. Good script and excellent editing. Nice one
Thanks for the encouragement! You just made my day. It's tough to find time to make these, but I'm having fun making them and hoping people enjoy them, too.
I think that the problem with inductive reasoning, is that there is a step people forget to add. We cannot only state the consistent past events but, we must further conclude, based on said consistency, that there must be an unseen mechanism by which the event necessitates the result. And, therefore, based on the conclusion that said mechanism exists, we can predict that the same results will come when the event happens in the future.
that's the problem with induction. we create labels for these "unseen mechanisms" and use induction as evidence for their existence. When in reality we have 0 evidence for these unseen mechanisms.
Often times we create a label for these "unseen mechanisms" and they end up not being consistent.
@@Akbarkhaan_ Exactly. We might say, the sun will rise again tomorrow because of the laws of space. How did the law of space come to be? It's induction, and it's a label for that "unseen mechanism".
@@Akbarkhaan_ the belief is unjustified in the atheist worldview, but that's different than there being no evidence the the future will correspond to the past. There's lots and lots and lots of evidence that that is the case. Hume just pointed out that there is no justification for the belief.
@@andrewpirr The evidence we have is based off of circular reasoning, which is a logical fallacy.
Just because something happened in the past a million times, doesn't necessitate it will always happen.
If the evidence is based off of circular reasoning, should we even consider it evidence?
"the belief is unjustified in the atheist worldview"
I agree.
@@Akbarkhaan_ I was responding to this part of your comment: "When in reality we have 0 evidence for these unseen mechanisms." By unseen mechanisms do you mean universals (numbers, logic, induction etc.)? If yes, them my point is we have endless evidence of all these things, but they aren't justified by empiricism. If no, forgive me and explain
This applies even better to soft sciences like economics.
Nicely explained
Amazing channel
i usually never comment but this was a really good/concise video thank you.
Thanks, Justin! I've gotten behind on making videos (it's just me making these and I teach 5 classes a semester), but comments like this are encouraging.
Loved it !
Why do we even refer to separate events as the same event happening again? Or, refer to separate objects as the same object? No two things are one and the same. However, we can refer to separate objects as being the same because, they line up with each other dimensionally, inside and out. This, then, is why we can refer to different events as the same event and different results as being the same results. And, it’s possible that the dimensional line up of the things, involved within events, necessitates a result of a particular dimensional line up. Thus, explaining why we find consistency in the results of events. And, this explanation is necessary, I think, unless these consistency’s have happened by a major coincidence. Therefore, we can conclude, with almost certainty, that certain events necessitate certain results, and we can, therefore, predict the results of these events, when they happen in the future.
Then prove causation and identity over time.
It seems to me like Hume is really pointing to a semantic issue. We KNOW the way we interact with physical events makes sense, but we don't express this fact in a sound way. He reveals that deductive logic is the wrong way of expressing it.
Would Hume agree with this alternative way of expressing the truth of our epxerience? :
1) fitting a model to data is a sound operation
2) Among competing models of our reality we find the hypothesis of regularity of laws of nature (RLN)
3) RLN fits the data better than competing models
4) It thus makes sense to presupose RLN
5) If RLN and event A occured lots of time in the past, then it will probably occur in the future
Thank you. Yes. Semantic is the right word.
If part of the definition of copper is that it is conducive. Well if it wasn’t conducive then it wouldn’t be copper. To say “It’s because it happened in the past,” is akin to saying words have no meaning because they were defined at some point long ago. It’s fallacious.
@@royromano9792 no, semantic is not the right word. It’s epistemological. And what Hume said made perfect sense. Note how he never actually stated that the past doesn’t determine the future. He merely points out our lack of ability to know whether this is true. You can sit around saying that “this is the way things are”, and you might be correct, but it’s a clear symptom of pride to assert that you know something is.
@@royromano9792 Also I’m struggling to understand your copper example. You establish this idea that “copper is conductive” but never explain why. How did you discover this? Because it’s always been shown to be?
@@thediamondpig5386 copper is conductive by definition. There is no why necessary. Therefore if you test something, and it’s not conductive, it is not copper.
@@royromano9792 are you hearing what you’re saying right now? By definition? How do you think we arrived at that definition? Even if you think it’s an immutable fact that copper is conductive, you must think that humans aren’t born with that knowledge, right? And so, it’s taken some sort of analysis to arrive at that conclusion.
This whole discussion has to do with what we can know, not what is objectively true. You’re missing the point.
Quick, to the point and we don't need to read a philosophy book. Thanks!
I went to boil some water. Left the room with it on the burner for a while. When I came back the water had frozen.
This video saved me 1 point on my Philosophy test
I don’t make these for fame or riches. I do it for things like this. (Though fame and riches wouldn’t hurt.)
thanks
Interesting light, with 4 wires
Can you tell I'm not an electrician? 😂 I just found the image of frayed wires and ran with it.
Could be an RGB led.
2:40 "We have no good reason for thinking that's true" - Of course you have!! You have entire history to show exactly that - future behaves either exactly like the past, or rhymes extremely closely with the past.
That's circular reasoning
So my bf will stop cheating on me ? 🤔
"The future will behave like the past" has probability behind it, so it can be supported without circular reasoning.
There have been an infinite number of instances where copper conducted electricity in the future from a a reference point of a specific point in time the same way as the past.
There have been zero instances where it didn't.
the false assumption to copper conducting electricity is that it is a function of time.
It’s not the ‘future’ that’s behaving like the past though. It’s a physical phenomenon that is occurring.
It's nothing to do with reasoning. I'm just curious about history of electromagnetic & how electricity & magnetism become united. 🙅🙅🤦🤦🤦
The analogy doesn’t hold though. The analogy needed to be “Amy in the past paid you back once, she says she will pay you back again”.
Replication confers certainty and Truth is that which we can be most certain of. Next problem?
Exactly! The whole “problem of induction” seems irrelevant since we actually have no reason to think the future won’t behave like the past since that’s all it’s ever done.
@@Chriliman Exactly. Each time the same input produces the same output, the Reason to guess it will again goes up. Logic is those relationships which always replicate.
@@ChrilimanThe point is that even though there is no reason to believe the future will behave differently from the past there is also no justifiable reason to believe it won't because all such reasons are inherently circular.
Hume is not arguing whether physics and reality will fundamentally change tomorrow but rather that one cannot strongly prove it won't.
Standard inductive reasoning goes:
“1. All me are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.”
This line of reasoning fails because, we could not know, to begin with, that all men are mortal, unless we already knew that Socrates is a man and is mortal. And, if we already knew it, to begin with, then we don’t need the argument to prove it true.
However, I can rephrase it in a way that works:
1. Every man other than Socrates is mortal.
2. There are 1 billion men (just for the sake of the argument).
3. The chances of this pattern existing by coincidence are 1/1 billion.
4. Therefore, it’s almost certain that a reasoning exists for why virtually every man is mortal.
5. Socrates is a man.
6. Therefore, it’s almost certain that Socrates is mortal.
There is no such thing as "almost certain" in Epistemology. The whole purpose is to figure out what we truly know without a doubt. Either you are certain that the sun will rise or you are not. Science only provides information based on past results, it however does not provide certainty in the future... This is why science involves FAITH
@@tonybased2061 Do you see epistemology in the title of this video? It’s a philosophy video, and there are plenty of philosophers whom say they are “almost certain” of things. Furthermore, I must ask why you put the word “faith” in all caps. What point are you getting at?
@@Homo_sAPEien "almost certain" is a oxymoron. It doesn't describe anything. It's like saying a man is "almost dead". An "almost dead" man is ALIVE. Either you are certain of something, or you are not. I capitalized faith because everything is ultimately based on faith. We can be absolutely certain of nothing. This is why many correctly say Science itself is a religion.
@@tonybased2061 It is not an oxymoron. If you’re 99.999% certain, then you aren’t 100% certain but, you are almost certain. And, I don’t get what your point is, in calling science a religion.
@@Homo_sAPEien You cannot be 99.999% certain of anything. In fact, you cannot be any percentage certain of anything. It is all based on faith that our future universe will be the same as the universe is today. That requires making a faith-based assumption My point is everything is based on faith
totally not about to use this for my final in scientific reasoning in college lol, totally not! (spoilers: yes i am)
The matrix has you
no attempted solutions to the problem of induction? incomplete video!
We expect the future to be like the past because our species evolved in an environment in which many patterns repeat over time and natural selection chose brains that could take advantage of this. Do we really need justification for being products of our environment?
You assume evolution to be true by inductive reasoning while making that statement. Your question is circular.
@@science_is_fake_and_gay2710 I made a claim without any reasoning to back it up. It's intended for people who already believe in evolution by natural selection.
@@chuckgaydos5387 but there is no objective truth that we came from subspecies. Just subjective assumptions.
@@emiledin2183 My post wasn't targeted at philosophers. It was intended for reasonable people.
@@chuckgaydos5387 you are being irrational, why do you think that reasonable people believe in evolution xD, that would be only for the irrational sheeps
Well, the second question is a nonsensical question. If I said the notebook is on the desk and you said where is the notebook, I woukd just be repeating myself.
The future behaving like the past is a fair assumption because anytime we tested this claim the future did in fact behave like the past. That's a reason I don't need a reason after it.
What you are saying is that the observed fact that the future always behaved like the past therefore, proves the unobserved possibility that the future WILL behave like the past. This argument assumes that the unobserved will always act like the observed. Why do you believe that the unobserved will always act like the observed? What is the logical justification for the claim that the unobserved will always act like the observed?
@@Idkwhattonamess It's because I never seen any different. Induction doesn't always get it right, but there's no other way of communicating anything or doing anything if we don't just accept it as is. We would just go down this never ending inquiry of whether anything I know actually is.
@@Whoyouwishyouwere That’s circular reasoning. You’re saying that you have never seen any different, but that assumes inductive reasoning is actually good reasoning.
@@Idkwhattonamess Well, I guess the question isn't really worth asking. You keep asking why we use any form of premises and you will eventually just say "that's just how it is." And the question becomes what is a satisfactory answer for anything and no one actually has the answer to that. Induction has utility and is just innately how we all think.
@TheIQLord No. All truths stem from the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory. I like to define the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory as fundamental truths that could not be wrong as, if it were wrong, it would lead to all sorts of contradictions. For example, the law of non-contradiction (a fundamental truth that is true because of the impossibility of the contradictory) states that if something is true, the contradictory must be false. Any attempt to argue against this law would assume the law in the first place. This means that the law HAS to be true. If a premise to an argument stems from the fundamental truths, (the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory) that premise must be true. All truths branch out from the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory. All premises that you use to get to those truths stem from the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory. If we were to keep asking as to why we reason inductively, we would find that our premises that we use to come to the conclusion that inductive reasoning is correct are premises that do not stem from the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory. All truths stem from the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory and the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory stem from the fact that it would be contradictory for the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory to not exist. IF we keep asking why we use any form of premises, we could say...
"Premises are a body of facts that would HAVE to lead to a conclusion. We could derive conclusions from these simple facts. We therefore, could use premises to prove a truth"
Why could you derive conclusions from facts?
"That is a fundamental truth that is true because of the impossibility of the contradictory. If you cannot derive conclusions from facts, it would be contradictory. Facts are only true because of other facts that make it true. I.E, the grass is only green because the plant qualifies as grass, the electromagnetic wavelength of the grass is equivalent to the wavelength of the color green, and anything with the same electromagnetic wavelength as another thing would mean that those things have the same color. The fact that the grass is green could be used as a premise to a conclusion. This premise is only supported by other premises. We therefore, cannot be sure that the grass is green if we could not derive that conclusion from those premises. Obviously those premises are only true because of the premises or facts that make it true. This would mean that nothing is true because you would need facts to prove that something could be true. This leads to a sort of paradox. The fact that there are no objective truths would be an objective truth; however, there are no objective truths. In order to assume that there are no objective truths, you would have to assume that there are objective truths in the first place because the fact that there are no objective truths would be an objective truth. In order to get objective truths, you would need facts and vice versa (another fundamental truth that is true because of the impossibility of the contradictory). It logically follows that you can derive conclusions from facts because there are objective truths. Therefore, we could use facts to prove objective truths. We could check whether or not the statement, “The unobserved does always acts like the observed,” is a fundamental truth that is true because of the impossibility of the contradictory. The contradictory would be that the unobserved does not always act like the observed. If this was true… well, I see no contradiction with this statement. Therefore, the statement, “The unobserved always acts like the observed,” is not a fundamental truth. This statement could not stem from the fundamental truths either because there are no fundamental truths that prove that the unobserved always acts like the observed. It would be circular reasoning, which is proven to be an illogical form of reasoning by the fundamental truths. Truths are facts that derive from the fundamental truths that are true because of the impossibility of the contradictory. The fact that we could use premises is a fundamental truth. The fact that the unobserved always acts like the observed is neither, a fundamental truth, or a truth that stems from the fundamental truths.”
I don’t see this as a problem at all. We don’t actually have “proof” because in Humes view we need some kind of True Objectivity, but we have some very close. I would say that my reasoning is based off of success, not past results.
Induction SEEMS to be correct so far, if I get proof that for some reason reality alters, I can deal with it.
I’m sure he wrote excellent stuff but this “problem” is on par with the Problem of Achilles Arrow: syntactical clumsiness.
You don’t see it as a problem because you’ve already acknowledged that it’s correct. Like how could you write that with a straight face?
You already conceded that we’re merely “very close” to true objectivity, something Hume doesn’t necessarily disagree with. He only means to point out that we can’t know various things. Which is why his work is so brilliant.
You could say induction is a manageable way to navigate life in a stable, well-behaved reality. We might have to deal with a less stable, less well-behaved reality in the future, as we accelerate towards a "singularity". I think economics in a chaotic changing world is a good example of when induction doesn't hold up as well as in other more stable arenas, like harder sciences.
Hume is half right. His refusal to induction shows incomplete process of thinking. I will write an essay to correct him. Thanks for the video.
Make sure to send it to him to see if he agrees.
The deceptive part of this line of thinking is Hume is attributing agency to nature. While this is an inherently logical argument, it's not a useful one, because there is literally nothing which can be known with absolute certainty without *some* kind of assumptions about nature. So, what this argument is really doing is hedging a teleological argument supporting the existence of a divine creator, who, in this example, is Amy: an agent who is capable of deceiving you as to the inner workings of reality.
If you assume that, nothing can be concluded about any part of our experience, no science is valid, mathematics falls apart, the entirety of human knowledge crumbles in the face of the assertion that we are all the marionettes of a deceptive God.
In point of fact, we **DO** have good reason to assume that the future will behave like the past, when it comes to nature, because we've experienced extremely consistent results when every time we've tested it. Is it more or less reasonable to assume that gravity will cease to operate in the manner it has at any given moment, than to accept that nature is governed by empirically testable forces?
Great comments! I agree that it's not necessarily a useful or practical argument. In fact, Hume seemed to think it was more of a (perhaps unsolvable) puzzle. He didn't say that induction is actually bad or that we shouldn't use it. He just pointed out that we don't have good reason for thinking induction is good. But we still need to keep using it to get through life.
However, I do want to push back on part of your comment. You said, "In point of fact, we *DO* have good reason to assume that the future will behave like the past, when it comes to nature, because we've experienced extremely consistent results when every time we've tested it." But that sounds like you're using induction. You're saying, "In the past, the future has behaved like the past. So in the future, the future will continue to work that way." That's inductive reasoning. And so that reasoning itself *assumes* that the future will behave like the past. So it falls prey to the circular reasoning problem.
One last note: just because we don't have good reason for thinking something is true, that doesn't mean we should think it's false. For example, we might not have good reason for thinking there is alien life in the universe. But we also don't have reason for thinking there's NOT alien life in the universe. Hume would say the same thing about induction. We don't have reason for thinking the future will be like the past. But also we don't have reason for thinking the future WON'T be like the past.
@@ThinkingAboutStuff Yes, I understand the logical underpinnings of the circular reasoning problem. But it's so reductionist as to render all knowledge moot. Again, it comes down to: "Is it more or less reasonable to assume that gravity will cease to operate in the manner it has at any given moment, than to accept that nature is governed by empirically testable forces?"
@@AaronMichaelLong why do you try to bring it down to a reasonable decision?
As it was stated it is for practical belief to use indcution, that‘s propably what you wanna hear.
On the other hand since you‘re aware of the given circular logic induction uses, it‘s ok.
He was not attributing agency to nature. That is just a convenient way to present the subject.
@@dannygjk That doesn't make it sound reasoning. That's little more than an example of the streetlight effect, a.k.a. the drunkard's search.
I find these examples silly.
There is a definition of copper. Part of that definition is that it is conducive… For you to say that that copper is conducive, and that is built on inductive reasoning is fallacious.
Even as an example… Why assume any words have meaning at all? After all, they were given meaning in the past… Here is you’re thesis put another way. Heja Klaipeda ndjesaa Lola’s… Did that make any fu**ng sense to you?
wtf david u are so fucking smart i think hume he was or maybe after thinking to much he became crazy cause he was using reason to criticize reason 😂how is that possible