Inductive Reasoning

What will happen when you pull back a sling shot and let go? If you imagine that a pebble will fly forward then you are reasoning. But what kind of reasoning are you using?

Systematically work beyond your evidence. Sounds impossible? Well suppose you lift a rope out of the water. You do not know what you will lift out. Maybe an anchor, maybe a fishing net, maybe the a chest of gold. Yet, lifting the rope out of the water is not irrational. That rope goes somewhere, beyond your evidence, and you will get to some new knowledge at the end. Meanwhile if you just scoop out buckets of water from the lake, that would be an slightly less rational use of your time. Induction is to use sound and previously proven experience to make judgments that will lead to future new evidence. In programs you encounter this whenever you read a file, connect to the internet or wait on the user to type in a response. You are rational to try, but you do not have the evidence to know what will come.

Ready to see the third form of reasoning, abduction? Follow the green wire. Or if you want to dig into induction go with the red ones. And of course go back on blue if your want to remember what got you here.

Induct.4-5 Induct.9-10 –> Abduct.3-4 Abduct.14 –> Deduct.1

Deduct.6 ==> Logic.3
Logic.9 ==> Ops.6
Ops.10 ==> Types.5
Types.11 ==> Sets.7
Sets.12 --> Induct.8

Logic.7 -.-> Library.3
Logic.15 -.-> Writing.1
Logic.16 -.-> Substitution.9