Ben, It goes back to what "justification" we are talking about. "To prove it" is a strong version, and "to show supporting evidence" is a weak version. Hume pointed out that induction cannot be justified in the sense that there is no way to guarantee that all inductive conclusions will be confirmed.
I don't think Hume can be cited to support the assumption that "complexity is correlated to probability", or that this assumption does not need justification, just because inductive conclusions can be wrong. There are much more reasons to accept induction than to accept the above assumption. Pei On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 12:31 PM, Ben Goertzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> >> However, it does not mean that all assumptions are equally acceptable, >> or as soon as something is called a "assumption", the author will be >> released from the duty of justifying it. > > Hume argued that at the basis of any approach to induction, there will > necessarily lie some assumption that is *not* inductively justified, but > must in essence be taken "on faith" or "as an unjustified assumption" > > He claimed that humans make certain unjustified assumptions of this nature > automatically due to "human nature" > > This is an argument that not all assumptions can be expected to be justified > ... > > Comments? > ben g > > ________________________________ > agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
