forum for week of 24 October: Inference to the Best Explanation

consider two types of problem case for inductive reasoning:
- patterns that  suggest they do not continue unchanged: the earth's  population, marathon times
- patterns that only a maniac would project:  all times having been past, everyone I meet meeting me.
How would  the Inference to the Best Explanation handle these cases?  (How plausible would it be?)

These problem cases for inductive reasoning made me think about the assumptions that are embedded in each of these examples. The question becomes, what terms of discussion are we examining?

In the first case, are we defining the earth's population as the entirety of all living species or just the human population? If we assume that we are only discussing human population, then are we talking about the whole population, or the population broken down into subsets such as: death and birth rates, geographical trends, gender or generational divisions, socio-economic inferences, or the distinction between the developed and emerging worlds? The Inference to the Best Explanation for the over-all trend for global population is that it will continue to rise at an alarming, and possibly exponential rate. The patterns for increased growth are, globally, that in spite of war, disease, and disaster, are incontrovertible. There has been no contradictory evidence.

The Inference to the Best Explanation for the case where the lunatic believes that all times having been past can perhaps be summed up by the idea that while time is always moving forward, our sense of a moment in time immediately puts it in the past. As I type the word "now", the action itself becomes a past occur that can be explained after it has transpired (I typed the "now" five seconds ago). Therefore, all future events are past events waiting to happen.

My point here is that once you accept the hypothesis of an inductive argument, the IBE becomes difficult to challenge. -CLAIRE CHEVREAU

This is a tricky one...

It is reasonable to believe that the earth's population cannot continue increasing indefinitely, since the earth's resources cannot possibly sustain an ever-increasing number of people. In this case, the Inference to the Best Explanation would suggest that the pattern (a growing population) would eventually break and that the population would have to start decreasing. Personally, I think that this is a fairly plausible hypothesis, since it is unreasonable to expect that the population will continue increasing indefinitely, even if it has done so in the past. Of course, it is possible we will come up with an invention that will use resources in a way that can sustain everyone, at all times, but it is far more likely that the pattern of the ever-increasing population will have to break and the population will have to start decreasing.

For the second example, I feel that for pattern's that only a maniac would insist on, the Inference to the Best Explanation would ultimately reject such patterns. The best explanation would be to conclude that it is unreasonable to rely on such patterns, since they are not justified or based on any good evidence. I hope that I am on the right track with these questions. -VERONIKA BONDARENKO

In the first case, we look at a graph of the worlds population and over time it has increased, there are however points in the worlds history where the population has drastically decreased, For instance, the black plague in Europe and the ice age. Events in the worlds history tell us that we are at the mercy of weather, disease and the exhaustion of the worlds resources. Simple induction tells us that the worlds population will increase at a rate of X and hit a population of Y at one point. The infinite number of possibilities forces us to doubt that the earths population will ever hit 30 billion people. It does make sense for us to conclude that at the rate the earths population is growing it will hit a certain number of people and until something drastic occurs we should believe it will happen. In the case of the marathon runner we will plateau at some point, We know that human beings can only run so fast and at one point it will be impossible to go any lower. But the future is so uncertain how can we conclude such a thing. We cannot conclude that human beings will evolve and run at a speed that we previously believed was impossible. Because of this fact we must suspend judgment and at least believe it to be possible to continue in the direction it has been going for so long.

In the case of the earth’s population, many possibilities can be mentioned as it matters which patterns are being evaluated. Would it be the pattern of human population growth? Would it pertain to the extinction rate rather than population growth of species in general on the earth? To what degree/time period are we judging this change? If referring to the extinction rate, the IBE would suggest that the human population will grow to a certain point, reach a threshold, and begin a slow or drastic decline until the existence of human beings is no more. Thus continuing the pattern of life and death of species on the planet earth.

With regards to the maniac, the IBE may reflect the social environment and its effects on that person’s mind (considered a “maniac”) as an explanation to place it under the hypothesis. It is somewhat reasonable to assume that a maniac responds to certain things in a way that is deemed abnormal. Representative of the way he/she thinks, it can be reduced to the environment that the he/she was brought up in. Typically, a maniac will exist in an environment that has a norm and therefore may cause the maniac to become more isolated, mentally and/or physically. As a result of this almost forced introversion, their reality may grow to become very different compared to the norm; thereby making that way of thinking quite plausible in terms of his/her reality.

After writing this, I feel my understanding of IBE has become more convoluted and less concrete. I hope I am not too far off. -DEREK CHOW

I wonder about the very premise of the earth's population growing indefinitely. Has this always been the case? Until agricultural inventions had been introduced, it seems that in history, the earth's population has experienced stabilization and then different rates of acceleration. The Inference to the Best Explanation would indeed say that the earth's population will continue to grow indefinitely based on the graph we saw in class but what would it say based on a graph that actually pre-dated 1800? From that the IBE could be that the earth's population simply experiences fluctuations. I too am finding the concept of IBE a bit tricky...

I'm a little confused about the difference between the best explanation and induction... Just to help me clarify: For the first, induction would conclude, for example, that the marathon times would continue correct? There will still be a steady incline in performance, however we mostly all would agree that there would be a plateau to the performance level and it couldn't continue infinitely as induction would suggest. This is a problem and we now need to come up with a response from the abduction (IBE) perspective to address the problem. However, I don't see how that is possible given my understanding of abduction. I'm aware that my understanding of the terms may be construed which is what complicates my response but is it not true that abduction is an inference to determine the cause of a result? Being that we don't know the end result of the examples given (population growth, marathon times)can we really apply abduction to them? I don't believe we can... Or it could be that abduction just requires us to look at the information we have, assuming now is the end result, in which case there is also a relatively gradual increase in population with slight fluctuations which would force us to conclude the same pattern in the future... although abduction is not about future projections (or at least my understanding). So I guess what I am saying is that abduction cannot address problems posed by induction.... And as for the second case "...everyone I meet meeting me" I don't understand so I can't address. Ha, I hope this counts as an adequate forum contribution. If any one could clarify the problem for me I would greatly appreciate it!

I was also wondering which of simple induction and IBE might be more fundamental, Is it quite possible that IBE might be fundamental? When we use curves for info, Dr. Morton pointed out that expectations differ and that patterns we project depends on what on we expect the figure to be describing and meaning... Jessica chen

These are interesting cases for sure.

I would say that IBE would handle the first case by projecting that the pattern would follow the same direction, just not the same trajectory. For population growth we may not follow the same pattern as the last few hundred years in terms of rate of growth, but the best explanation would include that population will continue to increase, but at a much more extreme rate than before. As for marathon times the opposite is true. IBE would say that marathon times are currently decreasing, but there must be a limit to that. So while its' prediction will not diverge from the current pattern in terms of direction, it will probably suggest that the rate of decreasing times will start to take on a more modest rate.

IBE would handle the patterns only a maniac would project by creatively putting use to the aggregate of the background beliefs society uses to control the risk of taking on new beliefs. Since the ridiculous pattern presumably lacks properties that we associate with relatively more accurate projections, IBE would align itself with an explanation that most closely matches the polar opposite of the maniac's projection.

When taking a look at the first problem and how IBE would handle this case, it seems almost clear that IBE would look to the facts that we have gained over time to created a best hypothesis. That would mean that over time the population of the world has increased and therefore is continuously increasing without change. The same way as the marathon times are continuously decreasing, and the sun continues to rise every day. The patterns that are perceived as continuous and without change. some when making the best explanation for patterns that do not change, you would look to facts and inferences that have been gathered that prove to be continuous and not changing. And by using IBE they can justify their inductive reasoning towards their beliefs.

For the population one, it is kind of hard to create a hypothesis through IBE since there are unpredictable events which may cause population to increase (baby-boomer, improvement of medicine) or decrease (world war) drastically. The marathon one is tricky since one cannot determine who the winner is based on the order at a certain time. However once someone crosses the line, it is evident that the participants behind that person will not be on a higher position. As for the maniac one, I agree with what Claire says, all the future events are determined by past events.

This has been fairly well addressed so far, but I'll add my two cents.

For the population example, there would be limiting factors that would hinder the exponential growth of the population over time (ie. space, resources, rates of reproduction). Similarily, there are limits on human physiology that would prevent extremely quick marathon times. Although advances in training, diet, and technology would allow times to still be improved, there would be severely diminishing returns.