A question...

[salabob]

to any post-modernists: If you place a ball in a room, and turn your back on it, how many times must you turn around and verify that it is still there, before it becomes acceptable to assume that the ball will be present when you turn back around and look at it (Due to it having been there every time previously

Comments

Conversely?

[karak]

If there is no ball in a room, and turn your back on the room, how mnay times must you turn around and verify that it is still not there, before it becomes acceptable to assume that the ball will not be present when you turn back around and look

Re: Conversely?

[mortimerv]

True enough, but it seems to me as though this is merely a hypothetical example of a grander viewpoint, that doesn't take into account real world situations. So it's therefore kept as simple as possible, an unmoving ball sitting alone in a room, that you can choose to turn your back upon at any point in time.

At what point can a scientist accept that a tried, tested, and proven procedure will happen every time?

Personally, if I succeed in every single repetition of an action, and it doesn't differ in any way from one time to the next (for example, a shifting of the ball between one glance and another), I'll quickly draw the conclusion that the ball will remain there every single time, and look upon any who don't draw the same conclusion after a few repetitions to be either excessively stubborn, or excessively stupid.

[lt_fuzz]

Well, the simple answer is, you're never allowed to assume anything. Your question is essentially asking, does an inductive proof ever begin to become valid if you continue to find data for it. And the answer is, no, inductive proofs of this type don't actually give you any useful information. All you know is that the ball was there when you looked away, and without checking, you won't know whether it is still there. This is always the situation, regardless of how many times you continue checking and looking away.

[mortimerv]

..And unless you have no long-term memory and don't live in the real word, that's a pointless line of reasoning. If all people reasoned like this, we'd be back in the stone age, since no knowledge another tried to impart to you could be taken at face value. In fact, it's worse than that. Even animals know enough to realize how things behave, in order to predict future behavior. We'd be less than animals if nobody assumed anything.

A person arguing that I can't truly know what's behind my back is saying one of two things. One, that nothing can be predicted, which is obviously false, and I don't think I need to go into much detail explaining that. Or two, that you can predict things, but it might turn out as you've predicted. In that case, said person is just going blue in the face telling me what I already know and have learned thoroughly enough to take for granted.

Re:

[lt_fuzz]

I'll point out that you guys asked for the philosphical post modern interpretation of the question. Not for the real-life usefulness of it. Obviously, people do assume things, and acknowledgment of repeated behavior is a very useful evolutionary trait. It is still the case however, that those assumptions are always unreliable, and can fail at any time.

[mortimerv]

Well, yeah, except that I didn't ask for anything. I merely responded to your response, I didn't ask the original question. I'm also just having a bit of fun with this, not assuming that you care any more for either side of the coin than I do.

Aside from that, as you say, those assumptions can fail at any time. After some point the basic assumption should be that they will not fail, not that they will fail or that no conclusion can be drawn about their failure. Using a basis that's based on something that is most definitely not a solid line of thought is a very faulty means of demonstrating a concept.