"New" Problem of Induction?

[Judicator]

Just wondering what your thoughts were on this example. What's better about believing objects are green and not grue? Is it really just that we like it better because of our language?

Nelson Goodman presented a different description of the problem of induction in the article "The New Problem of Induction" (1966). Goodman proposed a new predicate, "grue". Something is grue if it has been observed to be green before a given time t, or if it has been observed to be blue thereafter. The "new" problem of induction is, since all emeralds we have ever seen are both green and grue, why do we suppose that after time t we will find green but not grue emeralds? The standard scientific response is to invoke Occam's razor.

Goodman, however, points out that the predicate "grue" only appears more complex than the predicate "green" because we have defined grue in terms of blue and green. If we had always been brought up to think in terms of "grue" and "bleen" (where bleen is blue before time t, or green thereafter), we would intuitively consider "green" to be a crazy and complicated predicate. Goodman believed that which scientific hypotheses we favour depend on which predicates are "entrenched" in our language.

[brisbane buddy]

Just wondering what your thoughts were on this example. What's better about believing objects are green and not grue? Is it really just that we like it better because of our language?

Nelson Goodman presented a different description of the problem of induction in the article "The New Problem of Induction" (1966). Goodman proposed a new predicate, "grue". Something is grue if it has been observed to be green before a given time t, or if it has been observed to be blue thereafter. The "new" problem of induction is, since all emeralds we have ever seen are both green and grue, why do we suppose that after time t we will find green but not grue emeralds? The standard scientific response is to invoke Occam's razor.

Goodman, however, points out that the predicate "grue" only appears more complex than the predicate "green" because we have defined grue in terms of blue and green. If we had always been brought up to think in terms of "grue" and "bleen" (where bleen is blue before time t, or green thereafter), we would intuitively consider "green" to be a crazy and complicated predicate. Goodman believed that which scientific hypotheses we favour depend on which predicates are "entrenched" in our language.

Grue would only be green after time t, if people related and associated to it. If a person doesn't relate they can't associate therefore it can only ever remain green or a variation of green based on common association for this is what they relate to.

Example, go back 20 years and the letters LOL really held no meaning or value, there was no direct relationship of association to them (this is not entirely true, in one survey I undertook, many people related it to Lots of Love). Enter the world of the internet and mobile telephones and all of a sudden an association pattern is made. Now many people relate and associate to the letters LOL. It isn't just the internet of course, many industry specific abbreviations have sprung up all over the place, an example being SOP being standard operating procedure, it would be related to and associated to by everybody familiar to that industry, but to people without a knowledge base in a related industry, they wouldn't relate to it therefore wouldn't associate to it.

If the brain can't relate it can't associate. And when it associates, it associates the way it relates. And if the brain can't relate or associate, it creates (a new association pattern).

Cheers.

[minorwork]

Just wondering what your thoughts were on this example. What's better about believing objects are green and not grue? Is it really just that we like it better because of our language?

Nelson Goodman presented a different description of the problem of induction in the article "The New Problem of Induction" (1966). Goodman proposed a new predicate, "grue". Something is grue if it has been observed to be green before a given time t, or if it has been observed to be blue thereafter. The "new" problem of induction is, since all emeralds we have ever seen are both green and grue, why do we suppose that after time t we will find green but not grue emeralds? The standard scientific response is to invoke Occam's razor.

Goodman, however, points out that the predicate "grue" only appears more complex than the predicate "green" because we have defined grue in terms of blue and green. If we had always been brought up to think in terms of "grue" and "bleen" (where bleen is blue before time t, or green thereafter), we would intuitively consider "green" to be a crazy and complicated predicate. Goodman believed that which scientific hypotheses we favour depend on which predicates are "entrenched" in our language.

Charlie Myers, my philosophy professor in 1973-74, tried to get this thru my thick skull. Never got it then. I always figured a new sense organ that could somehow detect time t would have to be consciously known about and used. Charlie didn't seem to like that but could never get me to understand that time t thing without the ability to sense it. What would be so special about time t? This thing made me want to use drugs so I'd have an excuse to not understand. Have mercy.

[Judicator]

brisbane buddy: The example isn't talking about how words that we use to describe things change, it is inventing a hypothetical property where the colors actually change. For example, the grass could be green, or it could be grue with any t>now. Both hypotheses fit current data equally well.

minorwork - time t can really be any time in the future. If you have a specific question I can try to help.

[minorwork]

minor work - time t can really be any time in the future. If you have a specific question I can try to help.

Thanks Jude. I guess I just didn't get what the point of it was. Charlie made sure I knew it had changed at some future point, really changed from green to blue. So? Induction is not as strong as deduction. After awhile though a reasonable conclusion can be drawn that the sun is going to come up tomorrow and not be blue. If you want to give it a name of yeller, then fine that will cover if it comes up blue some day. I just don't get it yet. You see where I'm at? What's the deal?

Oh yeah. Why label this "new?" I had it in '74.

[brisbane buddy]

brisbane buddy: The example isn't talking about how words that we use to describe things change, it is inventing a hypothetical property where the colors actually change. For example, the grass could be green, or it could be grue with any t>now. Both hypotheses fit current data equally well.

minorwork - time t can really be any time in the future. If you have a specific question I can try to help.

This I understand Judicator, like I said, all is a matter of association. The colour could change, but by association the name of the colour could still be green and not grue unless this association pattern changed. Colour is only reflected light from injected light.

As I don't like dealing in hypotheticals, I reversed it to reality. For in reality, for green to change colour in any "t" period, would mean a change in reflected light, or, injected light, injected light being the more probable. What this would mean is a change in the sun or a change in the Van Allen belt. Probability leans toward a change in the van allen belt. Such a change would influence more than colour for it would signal a change in radiation levels.

Cheers

[minorwork]

Next day and I see I've screwed up again. My name of "yeller" for the sun that would turn blue at some future t should have been "yellue."

[Judicator]

minorwork - this one is "new" because the original problem of induction dates back to the 1700s with David Hume. The point about something changing colors in the future is that objects that have the property of changing colors in the future are completely consistent with our current observations. Current observations give us no way to distinguish objects which are identical in the past (green & green) but change in the future (green & blue).

brisbane buddy - As you said, it's a hypothetical example, if you're worried about consistency with underlying physical properties, I think you can assume that "grue" means those underlying physical properties that determine color also change at time t.

[minorwork]

Current observations give us no way to distinguish objects which are identical in the past (green & green) but change in the future (green & blue).

When you say 'objects', do you mean physcal ones or say for example the term 'species' which might be going out of favor. Or 'classification of living things' such as Linneaus' classifications my morphology that may be replaced by or supplemented by genetic descriptions. I'm not gonna go into how the term 'gene' is debatable. In short does this new induction apply to only physical objects.?

Take crows. Are all crows black? If a white bird that is identical to black crows shows up (say as an albino) what does the new problem have to say about that. Would it be the definition of the crow that changes at time t or, since the albino is white from birth, or a particular sample from a generic description. Is an emerald blue?

This is one complicated concept that is a challenge to inductive proof which has always been seen as a weaker conclusion than deductive proofs.