Unknowns comments on Justifying Induction - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Unknowns 22 August 2010 11:13AM

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Comment author: Unknowns 23 August 2010 03:14:05AM *  0 points [-]

If induction means "the correlation between past observations and future observations in nonzero," then not assuming induction could mean one of two things:

1)I might think there is some chance that the correlation is non-zero, and some chance that the correlation is zero. In this case Bayesian reasoning will still work, and confirms that the correlation is non-zero.

2) I might think the correlation is certainly zero. But in this case most people would not describe this as "not assuming induction", but as making a completely unjustified and false assumption instead. It is not negative (not assuming) but positive (assuming something.)