[lit-ideas] Re: Back to Popper (and further back to Hume)
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 21:49:27 -0800
John Wager wrote:
If one ONLY takes the three boxes on face value, without looking at
who set > them up, one has far less to work with.
Alas, the story teller tells us only what he tells us. And he refuses
to tell us
more. In the story, there are only swans and boxes and emptiness (and an
impresario who remains inscrutable).
But I'd be willing to bet that one can make some kinds of predictions
of the contents of the third box based on the "tell" of the person
creating the problem. Buddhists would LOVE a box full of nothing.
Zoologists might be tempted to stuff a black swan into the third box
just because people would then see what one looked like. (Of course,
given that the first box contains a swan, we would already have a
partial "tell." The person setting up the problem seems to have no
compunctions about boxing swans, increasing the likelihood that the
third box might contain swan too. If I thought that the person
setting up the boxes was a naturalist that valued eco diversity, I
might bet that the third box was swanless.
This is so appealing that it's hard to see who could deny it. But for someone
who has doubts about 'logical induction,' the tics and predilections of
various
sorts of people would be--wouldn't they?--just more of the same. 'In the past
when he's been bluffing, he's stared in the middle distance...'
Robert Paul
Reed College
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