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1.1.7.2 InductionVersion 1.4 August 2016                                       (Previous Version) We learn many things unconsciously by induction, as we gain experience and grow. If we see regular patterns over time and space then we learn to make predictions. If the sun has risen every day in the past, we can believe the sun will probably rise tomorrow. The more it happens, the more we are confident of it. As we learn more we can refine these predictions. As we grow, we discover that what other people tell us often (not always) turns out to be true. By induction we learn to learn from others – parent, teachers, friends, colleagues. Scientists and historians often use induction when they devise a new hypothesis. We need to test our inductions over a wide range of circumstances, and refine them or abandon them as required. · Close to the North or South Pole the sun does not rise each day. After it rises over the horizon it stays above the horizon for months.  Later in the year it stays below the horizon for months. · If the Earth is destroyed by a massive meteor then it may stop spinning on its axis, which means the sun won't rise again. · In about 4 billion years, the sun won't rise on Earth again because Earth will be enveloped by the Sun as it expands. So we can refine our induction to say: the sun will (almost certainly) rise tomorrow, at least in Earth’s mid latitudes away from the poles, for millions of years to come. We need to be aware of the limits of induction. For example: All swans originating in Europe are white. Europeans used the “law” of induction to conclude all swans are white. When some Europeans sailed up a river into what is now Perth, Australia, they saw birds exactly like swans, except they were black. Europeans discovered not all swans are white. We can never be sure that a proposition we believe by “induction” will apply in the places we haven’t yet checked. That river in Perth is now called the Swan River. Economists who try to predict how prices rise and fall in the stock market look at the data from the past and devise some rule to predict what will happen in the future. Such rules have worked well for a while, but then failed when something unexpected happened – a “black swan event”. The hedge fund LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) used an investment strategy devised by Nobel Prize winning economists that was hugely profitable for a few years, but couldn’t handle a new situation and LTCM had to be bailed out and is no longer in business. Perhaps most of what we know we have learnt by induction, by generalising from our experience. We phrase our current conclusion on this issue as follows: 1.1.7.2 We learn many things unconsciously by induction, and we can apply it consciously in science and history as well as our personal life and politics. We must be aware of the risk of relying on inductions, test them over a wide range of circumstances, and refine them or abandon them as required. more (later)
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