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you really should read a bit about the philosophy of science

Sounds like you're quite well-educated on this topic. Can you list a few recent philosophy of science books that you've read? I'm also interested in hearing your personal thoughts on each book you recommend, because I will not accept a simple copy/pasted list of coursework from Wikipedia. I want to hear about material you've personally read and your thoughts on each one, seeing as how you're thrusting these expectations on me.

It's not like what I am saying is totally new here. I'm plenty well read on the topic, and most of what I've said is similar in vein to Hume [1] (and others') work on the problem of induction [2]. For such a well-educated "philosophy of science" man as yourself, I'm surprised you've missed that obvious connection.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume#Induction [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction



Good morning,

no, I can not, and no, I am not thrusting any expectations on you, I am just telling you that there is literature out there that you might be interested in - though it seems like you are already aware of that.

Given that you seem to be familiar with the philosophical problem of induction, I guess I will revise my interpretation of what you are saying, and suggest books on actual science instead. It was not at all obvious to me that you were trying to point out the problem of induction, and if you were, then I would suggest that you haven't actually understood it, or rather, its consequences.

I think there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the argument for the problem of induction - but you have to realize that philosophically, there is no distinction there between the inductive conclusion that there is a big bang or evolution or bacteria or electromagnetism ... and the inductive conclusion that there is a sun. "The sun" and its associated properties and predictions are also pure induction and thus equally vulnerable to the problem of induction. And even more mundane things like the assumption that there are people out there and that there is a supermarket out there and that the bread that they sell you is not poisonous and ... - they are all inductive results. The problem of induction thus postulates that they are all equally problematic. See also solipsism.

The problem with your arguments is that you make an arbitrary distinction between things you supposedly "observe directly" and things that are "only derived inductively", which you do not justify (and which is not justified by the problem of induction), and which I would suggest is actually not justifiable, and what I am criticizing are the inconsistencies resulting from that. My best guess is that you need some more scientific background to see clearer why that distinction is arbitrary.




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