On Induction

On Induction

Regarding the author’s question, “Have we any reason to suppose that past events will hold in the future?” I would answer yes, which would be based on the nature and characteristics of the past events. Most events happening in the present can only be explained through observation of facts, specifically on how and why they occurred in the past. The author claims to use illustrations like the sun rising every day and laws of motion, believing that they operate the same in the future, attributed to continuous repetition. The author concludes that the knowledge of the past enables us to judge the future. In dealing with the question, I would argue that it is important to insert the past events that may probably or likely influence the future. The probable and likely aspects of this correlation should be ascribed to the two parts pertinent to the principle of induction, which encompasses the association of events and the nature of events or circumstances. Therefore, based on observations made in the past or presently, certain events with a set of specific characteristics, though unobserved in the future, are likely or probably result in similar events.

Student response #1:

Hello,

Great post! I agree with the claim that we tend to know things about the future based on what happens every day, repeatedly cases of the sun rising every day. The objection of not fully relying on these beliefs may also be true, as the author does not rule out a scenario of expecting the unexpected. I also agree with the perspective concerning the author not expecting us to entirely use prior knowledge to prove that nothing is ever guaranteed. Therefore, I agree that we should not approach the concept of the future using past events in a narrow aspect but should take into consideration possibilities.

Student response #2:

Hello,

Great post! I liked your approach to answering the question posed by the author. I agree with you. We need to categorize past events because they may be permanent or temporary, thus unreliable to base them on the future. Your chosen mathematical ideology best explains the extent to which to refute or believe that past events affect the future and explores the reliability of circumstances of past events in basing the future by introducing the concept of the relative factor, uniformity of events, and examining the assumptions before adopting them. I believe some of your provided examples are based on repetitive and constant events like the number of hours in a day and some on generally agreed mathematical conventions like the plotting of graphs.

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Blackboard Assignment

Your Blackboard assignment is to post a 100-word response to the reading  On Induction.

On Induction

In particular, try to answer the author’s main question posed in the middle of the reading:

The author asks:

“Have we any reason to suppose that past evens will hold in the future?”

How would you answer this question?

Please do NOT summarize the reading.   Simply answer the questions.

* Note on plagiarism

Submitting plagiarized responses, you will get you 0 points for the assignment.

Student response #1:

The author asks “Have we any reason to suppose that past evens will hold in the future?”. He used the example in the text stating that we know the sun is going to go up the next day. We know it will happen because we have seen it happen every single day from birth. However, he believes that we shouldn’t rule out that tiny percent chance that it doesn’t come up. It seems like the author believes that people should of course use prior knowledge, but at the same time expect the unexpected. I look at that as if the author is trying to prove that nothing is ever guaranteed. Most of the time our reasoning would get us through life and things that do happen. However, we can’t have a closed mind when it comes to other possibilities, even if we are certain on how things are going to play out. I believe we don’t really have the right to play it safe and assume that things in the past are going to play out the same way in the future.

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Student response #2:

When the author asks, “Have we any reason to suppose that past evens will hold in the future?,” I would answer this question by saying that it depends on the past even. There are categories of past evens that wield results that are permanent, and there are categories of past evens that produce results that are merely temporary. This same ideology is applied in mathematics; whenever you plot points on a graph, and you need to assign a category to both the x and the y axis, the x-axis is always known to be the independent variable. Some examples of independent variables are distance and time. Distance and time are always associated with the x-axis, because as the independent variable, it is something that you have no control over. In relation to the author’s question, time is an example of a past even that will hold in the future, because it is not a relative factor. We can always assume that there will be twenty-four hours in the day tomorrow, because there were twenty-four hours in the day today. The same can be said for uniform events, such as daylight savings. People know when to make adjustments to their clocks, because the time change always occurs on the second Sunday in March at 2:00 a.m.

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