It's induction, not deduction, Holmes!

Ah, Sherlock Holmes... As many of you know Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorite fictional characters. His superior powers of observation allow him to pick up just about anyone's story just by looking at them. In fact, in the stories he tends to get the most important details out of the simplest/out of place items which most people tend to overlook. This is something I admire quite a bit, especially since I like to people watch as well. It's always fun to guess at someone's story due to their little quirks, even though Katherine has pointed out that I am kinda creepy for doing this hahaha.

Well anyways, as the tile relates, one thing my brothers and my philosophy TA always get on Holmes' case is for his "deduction". For those who have actually read his stories, Holmes infers to the best explanation, which is an example of induction and not deduction. Even though there are many definitions and both deduction and induction are hard to describe, I'll give it a brief shot here. Deduction involves reasoning from the general to the specific. If an argument is deductively sound, then it has to be true. One of the most common examples of deduction is seen below:

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
===================
Socrates is mortal

Now, there is debate about whether men are mortal or if Socrates really was a man. Yet, ignoring these questions, if both of these premises are true, than the conclusion that logically follows has to be true. This is the strength of deduction, for having true conclusions can make very strong arguments...

Now, induction is sometimes categorized as any form of reasoning that is not induction. Even though this is not the best way to put it, it somewhat fits. Anyways, I've also heard induction referred to as reasoning from the specific to the general, or from the observed to the unobserved. This all sounds somewhat confusing, but most of induction is based off of our senses and what we observe. For example, an argument that reasons by induction looks something like this:

I have seen 100 swans
All the swans I have seen are white
===================
All swans are white.

Even though this is somewhat a poor example, hopefully the main points stick out. Going off of what I have observed, out of the 100 swans I have seen, all swans are white. If this sample is representative of the population (haha stats joke), I can induce that all swans are white.

Now, one thing that is interesting to note is that the way that induction differs from a deductive argument is that an inductive argument's conclusion does not have to be true. Just because I have seen 100 swans that are white, why do all swans have to be white? In fact, they don't. Apparently there are some black swans in some other country, so my inductive conclusion is thus false, even if my premises are true.

Hum, at this point I feel like I'm trying to teach basic argumentation skills rather than making a personal point. But, it does have a point! It's just a rather lengthy introduction that's all...

Anyways, all of induction (are at least most of it if not all) is based off of observation, and has currently been the main topic of our philosophy of science class. The thing is, how much can we trust induction? This reasoning from the specific to the general only would be effective if life is consistent. Yet, what is to keep the same principles from happening the same way over and over? David Hume argued that even though the past has been consistent and those all of our inductive knowledge worked then, why can't the future change and thus render all of our inductive knowledge useless? Just because the past has been consistent it doesn't mean it will be forever... If this is the case, then all of what we know through our sense could just be rendered one day useless and pointless.

Now, there is a ton more that I've been learning, but hopefully this should be enough to establish my point. Or in other words, maybe the lack of. Sure, this reasoning and stuff is interesting and all, but what is the point? At the end of the day when I look at it all, I don't see the application totally. Sure, it can help one think in abstract ways are question how much we truly know, but that's not exactly a good thing to dwell on. In fact, a lot of what we've learned in philosophy is how much we really can't know things, which is quite the depressing thought. I liked the philosophy material that Dave presented to me originally because it was about changing one's life and just an overall examination of one's self. It was highly applicable and something that I thought everybody should know. Yet now, this material I find interesting and all, but just another thing to know and not to focus on. It almost seems as if the philosophy material I'm being presented with is just something interesting to know but not exactly life changing, which is probably why I got into philosophy so much in the first place.

Iono, maybe I was blind to the way philosophy is from the beginning, but I don't think so. All the teachings of Socrates and other early Greek philosophers I consider important for just understanding life and developing a questioning, something important that I seem to be doing less as of late... I guess that's partially why I switched to psychology, another subject of high interest for me. Psychology is important for understanding how people think the way they do, and maybe if that's something that I can grasp I'll be able to make more of a difference now than understanding why people think the way they do. Of course, I consider both highly important, but I don't think I would like to major in philosophy to understand it all. I'm not exactly downplaying philosophy itself, but just the way it's presented today seems to be quite depressing. I mean, when you look at what you've learned in the end of the day and have a hard time of answering the question of why it matters, I think there is a problem...

So yeah, I guess this entry is somewhat instructional if not just a personal rant... If you are to get anything from this, I guess, just think about the meaning and purpose of things, if not your own life. Sometimes it's so easy to be caught in prior conceptions that we just seem to go at life in a constant routine, which is probably not the healthiest way to go about things. Just, hum, I don't know, question your life and your actions and avoid the mundanity of life. Yeah sure, that's a good way to put it I think... Well, thanks for taking the time to read this, and hopefully you got something out of it...