Legal Reasoning

[inunction]

In Aesop's fable, The North Wind could not, by force of cold or might of gale, remove the man's coat. But the Sun, by focus of warm smile, won the challenge with the man's willing surrender of his overcoat. The body is a living, responsive system. As toe cannot go but where body dictates, disease cannot reside without body's awareness. Healing is an inside job. If caress quickens stubbed toe's relief, would not a collective cellular-caress quicken cures if thoughts focused on healing, rather than war? [...]

[...] Instead of looking outward for intervention and cure, you turn others' focus inward and summon the most powerful help possible, self-truth. Changing thought content and intent changes energy's message and focus. Gaining cellular cooperation, by aligning logic with innermost truth, is when healing from symptom, to source, to system occurs. When united and focused, the resulting energy vibration can alter physical matter and change reality. When applied in that fashion, this simple but powerful premise can effect change, whether applied to cell, self, care, cause, or system.

Indeed - all that man needs to thrive and survive is provided on earth. It has not been said in vain that "we dig our graves with out teeth." After all, overpopulation will not be controlled, unless economic success and social status no longer depend on the number of offspring. Change belief, and the desire for large families will decrease, as will population. Examine your lifestyle, past, present and future, when the symptom is gallbladder pain. Change belief, and pain will be reduced and cause eleminated, often without surgery. Once belief is changed and each is reconnected to their own self-renewing, self-maintaining, and self-transcending power, each will understand that life is created and they, Co-Creators.

Thing is, encouraging a change in belief, sufficient for individuals to make their own betterment decisions independent of their (or any other influence) means that you won't be taught by the example of someone's else living. One tends to avoid, rather than accept and use his power. Why unconfident, then, when so powerful? Oddly enough, that which is core and power for a confident One, is Achilles' heel for an unconfident. Well, a confident One needs no other, because he trusts no other. When trust of self is implicit, life is conducted in strict accordance with innermost truth. It matters not one whit that the world snorts or sniggers, self-truth is always right for each. Trusting self to say and do right, no matter what, places responsibility and accountability in its rightful place: squarely upon individual shoulders. Whether professional or personal, individual responsibility ripples consequences throughout the collective. For instance, if each were to consider the short and long-term consequences of their own user and doer roles, would truth have built nuclear power plants or miss child support payments.

The only infinitely creative aspect of logic is that it can rationalize anything, given sufficient evidence. Emotion and intuition or soul cannot. As it is said of dogs, it can be said of logic: if given the choice or a chance, a dog will dump in any yard other than its own, unconcerned about the consequences of the act on others. Not so with truth. Once felt, emotional-truth cannot, as judge to jury, be instructed to ignore what is known including the consequences that inevitably will follow. To trust another is tantamount to finding a different yard than one's own, in which to dump blame or bury responsibility. That's why One does not trust others; he personally and fully assumes responsibility for all he says and does. Trust self first, last and only. If each creates his own life, who is more deserving of attendant credit or blame? Who suffers failure pain or celebrates success joy more than self, when efforts are self-directed, decided, and determined?

One does not tell others what to think, do, or say. It's not One's nature to convince or control but to offer expanded perspectives, instead, that others may freely embrace as their own or ignore; One may shed light on alternatives for others to more readily and easily see, but decisions are independently and individually made. Each is born with innate powers and unique gifts to create their own life their own way. They may know what's necessary and be willing to direct others to waters that quench, but whether to seek or to drink is each's decision. None are born disadvantaged. Most require evolutionary time to awaken and "experientially" mature to that realization. Only lessons stand between One and others, not birth advantage. One will not stockpile wealth or seek fame, nor does he adulate or emulate those who do. One's fulfillment doesn't come from accumulating, but from giving. It's unconscionable that starvation is possible where abundance grows, and that some are denied the basics of life while others enjoy excess without guilt. It will ever-be unbalanced and unfair, as long as belief measures success by individual wealth and influence, rather than by well-being of planet and specie. It's really a matter of changing belief from one, to one-blood perspectives.

One walks with confident compassion in all size, shape, and color of shoe, for he has worn all manner of footwear before. He's been planter of seed, hewer of wood and hauler of water; doctor, lawyer, and Indian chief. He's been leader, follower, artist and poet; and pilot of land, sky and sea. He's been beggar and king; prophet and sinner; retarded, exceptional, and genius. He's been victim, perpetrator, judge and juror; father, daughter, mother and son. He's been honorable and despicable; apathetic and fanatic; athlete, disabled, starved and obese; and has died many times, many ways -- violently, quietly, nobly, cowardly, in all season, for all reason, and by all manner of disease and complication. His soul is experience-full and satiated.

One awakens the sleeping truth in others, to help them remember they are Co-Creators with unlimited power. Chaos and confusion, loneliness and helplessness are states of mind. But mind is not where power or individuality lives. That dominion and domain belongs to soul -- the master over body and mind. Life is or it isn't, at soul's discretion. And while life is intended to be a self-created experience, each thought, expression and action, like the vibrations of a plucked guitar string, affects and impacts the whole in healing, hurtful, or helpful ways. Affect and impact, whether negative or positive are individual choices with eternal consequences. Pluck freely -- create your own unique soul-stirring sound and share your music willingly and generously with others. Pleasing one soul ripples pleasure through all; a consciousness that is as much hallmark as cellular for him. There's a caution for success that embodies evolutionary wisdom as well: "it's wise to be kind and honest with others on your way up, for you'll meet again on your way down."

Evolution allows time for ability to evolve sufficient for flight, but not always time enough for courage to arrive with it. The difference between those who find self-fulfillment and those who don't? Some trust their wings will work, when they jump off the limb that frightening first time. What are we saving ourselves for? Giving the whole and all of self away, can neither diminish nor deplete, for the promise built into the god-spark is eternal renewal. Tomorrow's archaeologists will sift through layers of dirt and unearth buried things that today are the focus behind much earnest striving. Ultimately, only soul defies burial and is beyond wealth or time. Beyond ownership, too.

[gaze]

Puritans don't work things out with enemies like these because there is no negotiating with the irrational. The Puritan mind reasons: "Well of course the witch doesn't want to be saved from her own evil. That's why we must save her from herself by burning her at the stake."  Sounds absurd, but that American major said after the destruction of the village of Ben Tre in Vietnam: "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it." A true Puritan there. And now look what we're doing in Iraq. Think Fallujah. We're burning the country at the stake. It's a form of mental illness, but it's a sickness we all accept as normal.

Terrorism is the latest encounter of the Puritan mind with the irrational, and the traditional Islamic culture that promotes it will just have to be destroyed to save it. World politics will be so much more hygienic once we exterminate the vermin. I wasn't all that surprized to learn that Tom Delay had been an exterminator before he entered politics. He's the poster child for this tragic illness. Would that Jerry Lewis have a telethon to raise money for its cure.

A key element in understanding the Calvinist mentality is its need for control and its willingness to use whatever level of violence necessary to repress the "irrational" elements in human experience, and the premodern in the Puritan demonology is full of irrational images triggering fears in need of suppression—magic, witches, Catholic ritual, shifty Jews, hot-tempered Italians, voodoo practicing Africans, the savage Indian. J.K. Rowling's "muggles" and  their fear of magic is a kind of sendup of this mentality. Theirs is a tight, priggish, white-bread, control-obsessed world, sterilized of anything that suggests mystery, transcendence, or the non-rational in general. The Puritans and their Calvinist cousins the Scotch Irish, of course, didn't  invent priggishness, nor are they, obviously, the only ones in the history of humanity who have justified the violent repression of their enemies for religious reasons. But theirs is the peculiarly modern form for the religious persecution of the enemy, and it lingers in Anglo-American culture, and is so much in the cultural air we breathe that we cannot see it clearly. At the very heart of modern "religiosity," whether in its Calvinist or its more secular versions, is fear of the uncontrollable non-rational.

The American right's fear of communism/socialism is more akin to the Islamic fear of modernity, which is the fear of an uncontrollable future. If fascism derives its mystique from a mythological past, communism derives it from a mytholgized future. Progressives look to the future.  Conservatives look to the past. Progressives distrust the past and its premodern irrationality; Conservatives distrust those who look to the future with an irrational utopianism. Progressivism is experiencing hard times these days because during a culturally decadent period like the one we're currently suffering through, we don't know what to hope for.  We have only the weakest sense of plausible future possibility.  We are capable of seeing the future only as a variation on 'more of the same', and that is not a vision that inspires concerted action. That will change someday, but for now it's the conservatives' time because when our imagination of the future is weak, we fall back on the past for want of something better. And we find ourselves voting for mediocrities like George Bush rather than mediocrities like John Kerry for the same reason.  The first represents the solidity of the past; the second a fuzzy future for which we can muster little hope.

The idea that the universe has a rational structure that the mind can apprehend characterizes an older trend in European philosophy called "rationalism." Rationalism traces its roots to Rene Descartes and to the birth of modern philosophy. Most of 20th century European philosophy was a direct reaction to this older tradition, a reactionary attempt to explore the possibility that the universe has no rational structure for the mind to apprehend. Phenomenology, for example, as advocated by Edmund Husserl confines itself to observing and describing our own consciousness without drawing any conclusions regarding causes or connections.

Human beings seem to have a need for transcendence. The present is examined in light of the past to build our biographical identity, the essence of the continuity of our person in time. Renunciation, being fundamental to the achievement of psychic maturity, is related to leaving something behind and accepting the passing of time and the impossibility of controlling the future. But is it enough? No; renunciation is not enough; we need something more. In psychoanalysis, this can be defined as facilitating a space to play or a space of illusion in our own lives. In therapy, analysands perform a core task basically related to time. They remember the past to then abandon and renounce it. In addition, they forfeit control over the future.

Phenomenology and psychoanalysis have in common that they consider the investigator and the subject as equals as evidenced by the application of their basic principles and of their findings to both investigators and investigatees whom they consider human beings cooperating in a joint search for knowledge. In psychology, phenomenology is used to refer to subjective experiences or their study. The experiencing subject can be considered to be the person or self. Subjective experiences are those that are in principle not directly observable by any external observer. One aspect of this of great philosophical interest is qualia, whose archetypical exemplar is "redness". "Is my experience of redness the same as yours?" "How would we know?" Subjective experiences are not merely perceptual. They can include any emotional, cognitive, or conative experience reaching the consciousness of the subject.

Phenomenology, as a philosophical method, has been successfully utilised by a number of 20th century existential philosophers, including Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Jaspers. The method of phenomenology seems to be a tool peculiarly suited to the investigation of human existence. Husserl's phenomenology is important for existential philosophers because it appeals to experience supposedly without theoretical bias. One of the important differences between Husserl's phenomenology and those of existential philosophers is that for Husserl there is stronger emphasis on essence, and that for him philosophy should be treated as a science. Existential phenomenology gives a detailed description of phenomena in our everyday experiences, but the emphasis is on human existence. Sometimes Husserl's phenomenology is criticised for neglecting individual human existence and Being itself. The place of Jaspers'  phenomenology in his philosophy is a complex issue. Although he uses the method of phenomenology he does not consider himself as a phenomenologist. It should be noted that Jaspers was a medical doctor, a psychologist and a psychiatrist before he finally turned to philosophy. He was undoubtedly influenced by Husserl's phenomenology, particularly in his early works.

[dearlove]

The idea that the universe has a rational structure that the mind can apprehend characterizes an older trend in European philosophy called "rationalism." Rationalism traces its roots to Rene Descartes and to the birth of modern philosophy. Most of 20th century European philosophy was a direct reaction to this older tradition, a reactionary attempt to explore the possibility that the universe has no rational structure for the mind to apprehend. Phenomenology, for example, as advocated by Edmund Husserl confines itself to observing and describing our own consciousness without drawing any conclusions regarding causes or connections.

Human beings seem to have a need for transcendence. The present is examined in light of the past to build our biographical identity, the essence of the continuity of our person in time. Renunciation, being fundamental to the achievement of psychic maturity, is related to leaving something behind and accepting the passing of time and the impossibility of controlling the future. But is it enough? No; renunciation is not enough; we need something more. In psychoanalysis, this can be defined as facilitating a space to play or a space of illusion in our own lives. In therapy, analysands perform a core task basically related to time. They remember the past to then abandon and renounce it. In addition, they forfeit control over the future.

Phenomenology and psychoanalysis have in common that they consider the investigator and the subject as equals as evidenced by the application of their basic principles and of their findings to both investigators and investigatees whom they consider human beings cooperating in a joint search for knowledge. In psychology, phenomenology is used to refer to subjective experiences or their study. The experiencing subject can be considered to be the person or self. Subjective experiences are those that are in principle not directly observable by any external observer. One aspect of this of great philosophical interest is qualia, whose archetypical exemplar is "redness". "Is my experience of redness the same as yours?" "How would we know?" Subjective experiences are not merely perceptual. They can include any emotional, cognitive, or conative experience reaching the consciousness of the subject.

Phenomenology, as a philosophical method, has been successfully utilised by a number of 20th century existential philosophers, including Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Jaspers. The method of phenomenology seems to be a tool peculiarly suited to the investigation of human existence. Husserl's phenomenology is important for existential philosophers because it appeals to experience supposedly without theoretical bias. One of the important differences between Husserl's phenomenology and those of existential philosophers is that for Husserl there is stronger emphasis on essence, and that for him philosophy should be treated as a science. Existential phenomenology gives a detailed description of phenomena in our everyday experiences, but the emphasis is on human existence. Sometimes Husserl's phenomenology is criticised for neglecting individual human existence and Being itself. The place of Jaspers'  phenomenology in his philosophy is a complex issue. Although he uses the method of phenomenology he does not consider himself as a phenomenologist. It should be noted that Jaspers was a medical doctor, a psychologist and a psychiatrist before he finally turned to philosophy. He was undoubtedly influenced by Husserl's phenomenology, particularly in his early works.

When I have objected on these boards and other places to the ruling majority paradigm in American contemporary psychology, behaviorism -- along with its attendant methods of research and therapy, behavior mod (modification) -- I was not speaking out of my ass. A hell of a lot of psychologists, described as humanistic, transpersonal, and existential-phenomenological psychologists, have described it as deficient in significant ways because its underlying paradigm gives us a mechanistic, uninspiring conceptualization of man and human reality, with a robot-understanding of human interaction and a caricature-vision of who we are.

[R e n é]

marshallah, is this the original video - I mean, I did a simple Google search and all I found was this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt1csFO4pDM&feature=related

As you can see the woman in black is "stolen" at the end by the man on the horse, while your link leaves the woman unmoved, so to speak, by that man. This simple fact attracted my attention because gia's avatar shows them both on the horse.

When it comes to Greek music, there is one princess only: ANNA VISSI: listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owj8e1A7hsk

[kehre]

No wonder, then, why the production and traffic of forged bills is so actively repressed and so heavily punished -- to a far greater extent, for instance, than are theft or embezzlement.

Well, the answer can only lie in this -- that is, the Symbolic, of which money is precisely a representative -- ought to circulate. The very durability of the social cultural system is at stake here, for this system could be overturned or even destroyed by the proliferation of false references that are necessarily excluded from any form of legal and symbolic guarantee.

Forged currency is a parody: it apes, as it were, real currency, and renders this ridiculous in much the same way as an ape imitating a man makes fun of the latter. And as one cannot make fun of symbolic guarantees with impunity, the proliferation of forged currency is anything but neutral: not only economic values but equally ethical and juridical values, etc., soon appear as suspicious since currency is the expression of a global sovereignty.

Such considerations give support to the idea that it is impossible to completely trust the Symbolic, however absolutely indispensable this may otherwise be to Man. It may well be the case that the true bears the false within itself, but, more generally, money is never able to pay for or replace those minute fetishes (trivia, memories, etc.) that are so dear to us and which testify, over the course of our lives, to the absence of the fundamental object of desire (the proof that one cannot buy everything).

Digital cash presents an additional problem. Although payment with forged electronic currency could be construed as an act of theft or fraud, the very act of forging the electronic cash -- for example cracking the computer protections and copying the bits in the wallet on the hard disk -- is prima facie not prohibited by criminal law. A revision of the law is therefore necessary in order to make it clear that forging digital currency is just the same as forging bank notes.

Very interesting!

Why is "the real thing" so important to people? Objects are valued not only for their appearance, but also for their tremendous symbolic power. Any object can have symbolic and visual power. However, only "the real thing" contains the evidence to support its symbolic and visual importance. Evidential, artifactual, value is dependent on the material composition of the object. Reconciling the symbolic, visual, artifactual and evidential value of "the real thing" requires the convergence of stylistic, historical and scientific analysis. Such expertise is often provided by the collaboration of many experts found in museums like the Smithsonian. What do people really see when they look at an object on exhibit, in a book or on-line? What they actually see is a virtual reality, based on the appearance of the real thing. The appearances of objects have tremendous power to alter the course of history and human lives. But mere superficial appearances can be misleading.

Consider, for instance, something as simple as a manuscript. In fact, consider 3 famous manuscripts: "Howard Hughes' Autobiography," "Hitler's Diary," and the Mormon Church's "Salamander Letter." What do these documents have in common? Each had the power to greatly influence issues of legal, historical or religious significance. Each had this power, if, that is, they were "the real thing". But as it turned out, each was actually proven to be fake. The truth however exacted a costly toll, including the loss of human lives. One of history's most extreme cases of forged documents threatened to undermine one of the world's most powerful religions. The case of the "Freeman's Oath" and the "Salamander letter", resulted in the actual loss of life. In the mid-80's, a Utah dealer, Mark Hofmann, presented the Mormon Church with a series of documents, which if real would have greatly embarrassed the Church. As suspicion grew about the authenticity of the documents offered by Hofmann, he began to feel cornered. To protect himself, and provide a diversion, he resorted to murder, engineering the death of 3 people by blowing them up with home-made bombs. He eventually injured himself while transporting new bombs. When arrested, he ultimately confessed that he faked the documents; to make them appear authentic, he used historic paper and ink recipes. He claimed that he even artificially aged the documents by oxidizing them with hydrogen peroxide. This is what lead to his downfall and arrest in the first place. His creations had become suspect when examination, under high powered magnification (such as a stereomicroscope), revealed that the ink's medium of gum arabic was cracking in a strange manner, totally inconsistent with what would happen during "natural" aging.

[res extensa]

Inductive reasoning works from observation (or observations) toward generalizations and theories. This is also called a "bottom-up" approach. Inductive reason starts from specific observations (or measurement if you are mathematician or more precisely statistician), look for patterns (or no patterns), regularities (or irregularities), formulate hypothesis that we could work with and finally ending up developing general theories or drawing conclusions. In a conclusion, when we use Induction we observe a number of specific instances and from them infer a general principle or law. Inductive reasoning is open-ended and exploratory especially at the beginning. Induction is ampliative. The conclusion of an inductive argument has content that goes beyond the content of its premises. A correct inductive argument may have true premises and a false conclusion. Induction is not necessarily truth preserving. New premises may completely undermine a strong inductive argument. Inductive arguments come in different degrees of strength. In some inductions the premises support the conclusions more strongly than in others.

The major disadvantages of the Inductive Criminal Profiling model are equally apparent to the critical thinker. First, the information itself is generalized from limited population samples, and not specifically related to any one case, therefore it is not by its nature intended for reconstructing a "profile" of an individual person. It is a generalized set of representations, averaged from a small group of individuals who may or may not have been appropriately sampled, depending on the knowledge and ability of the person collecting and assembling the data.

Second, and perhaps most commonly noted, is that inductive profiles are generalized and averaged from the limited data collected only from known, apprehended offenders. An Inductive Criminal Profile does not fully or accurately take into account current offenders who are at large, therefore it is by its very nature missing datasets from the most intelligent or skillful criminal populations; the criminals who are successful in continually avoiding detection by law enforcement.

A third major disadvantage is that, as with any such generalization, an Inductive Criminal Profile is going to contain specific inaccuracies that can and have been used to implicate innocent individuals. This occurs when an Inductive Criminal Profile is used as some sort of infallible predictive measure by an unprofessional, trigger-happy profiler. Recent examples include the 1996 case of Richard Jewell in the "Olympic Park Bombing" and, also in 1996, the Colin Stagg profile debacle in Great Britain. 
 
Assumptions of the Inductive Criminal Profiling model include: 

- Small groups of known offenders, who commit the same types of crimes as unknown offenders, have commonly shared individual characteristics that can be accurately generalized back to initially similar individual unknown offenders. 
- Offenders who have committed crimes in the past are culturally similar to current offenders, being influenced by at least similar environmental conditions and existing with the same general and sometimes specific motivations. 
- Individual human behavior and characteristics can be generalized and even predicted from the initial statistical analysis of characteristics and behaviour in very small samples. 
- Behavior and motivation do not change within an individual over time, being static, predictable characteristics.
 

The problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning is valid. That is, what is the justification for either:

• generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans) or,
• presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold).

The problem calls into question all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method. Although the problem dates back to the Pyrrhonism of ancient philosophy, David Hume introduced it in the mid-18th century, with the most notable response provided by Karl Popper 2 centuries later.

Pyrrhonian skeptic Sextus Empiricus first questioned induction, reasoning that a universal rule could not be established from an incomplete set of particular instances. He wrote:

when they propose to establish the universal from the particulars by means of induction, they will effect this by a review of either all or some of the particulars. But if they review some, the induction will be insecure, since some of the particulars omitted in the induction may contravene the universal; while if they are to review all, they will be toiling at the impossible, since the particulars are infinite and indefinite

The focus upon the gap between the premises and conclusion present in the above passage appears different from Hume's focus upon the circular reasoning of induction. However, Weintraub claims in "The Philosophical Quarterly" that although Sextus' approach to the problem appears different, Hume's approach was actually an application of another argument raised by Sextus:

Those who claim for themselves to judge the truth are bound to possess a criterion of truth. This criterion, then, either is without a judge's approval or has been approved. But if it is without approval, whence comes it that it is truthworthy? For no matter of dispute is to be trusted without judging. And, if it has been approved, that which approves it, in turn, either has been approved or has not been approved, and so on ad infinitum.

Although the criterion argument applies to both deduction and induction, Weintraub believes that Sextus' argument "is precisely the strategy Hume invokes against induction: it cannot be justified, because the purported justification, being inductive, is circular." She concludes that "Hume's most important legacy is the supposition that the justification of induction is not analogous to that of deduction." She ends with a discussion of Hume's implicit sanction of the validity of deduction, which Hume describes as intuitive in a manner analogous to modern foundationalism.

In inductive reasoning, one makes a series of observations and infers a new claim based on them. For instance, from a series of observations that at sea-level (approximately 14psi) samples of water freeze at 0°C (32°F), it seems valid to infer that the next sample of water will do the same, or, in general, at sea-level water freezes at 0°C. That the next sample of water freezes under those conditions merely adds to the series of observations. First, it is not certain, regardless of the number of observations, that water always freezes at 0°C at sea-level. To be certain, it must be known that the law of nature is immutable. Second, the observations themselves do not establish the validity of inductive reasoning, except inductively. In other words, observations that inductive reasoning has worked in the past do not ensure that it will always work. This second problem is the problem of induction.

[res extensa]

David Hume

David Hume described the problem in "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding," §4, based on his epistemological framework. Here, "reason" refers to deductive reasoning and "induction" refers to inductive reasoning. First, Hume ponders the discovery of causal relations, which form the basis for what he refers to as "matters of fact." He argues that causal relations are found not by reason, but by induction. This is because for any cause, multiple effects are conceivable, and the actual effect cannot be determined by reasoning about the cause; instead, one must observe occurrences of the causal relation to discover that it holds. For example, when one thinks of "a billiard ball moving in a straight line toward another," one can conceive that the first ball bounces back with the second ball remaining at rest, the first ball stops and the second ball moves, or the first ball jumps over the second, etc. There is no reason to conclude any of these possibilities over the others. Only through previous observation can it be predicted, inductively, what will actually happen with the balls. In general, it is not necessary that causal relation in the future resemble causal relations in the past, as it is always conceivable otherwise; for Hume, this is because the negation of the claim does not lead to a contradiction.

Next, Hume ponders the justification of induction. If all matters of fact are based on causal relations, and all causal relations are found by induction, then induction must be shown to be valid somehow. He uses the fact that induction assumes a valid connection between the proposition "I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect" and the proposition "I foresee that other objects which are in appearance similar will be attended with similar effects." One connects these two propositions not by reason, but by induction. This claim is supported by the same reasoning as that for causal relations above, and by the observation that even rationally inexperienced or inferior people can infer, for example, that touching fire causes pain. Hume challenges other philosophers to come up with a (deductive) reason for the connection. If he is right, then the justification of induction can be only inductive. But this begs the question; as induction is based on an assumption of the connection, it cannot itself explain the connection. In this way, the problem of induction is not only concerned with the uncertainty of conclusions derived by induction, but doubts the very principle through which those uncertain conclusions are derived.

So how does Hume gets us out of the woods? Well, he says that although induction is not made by reason, we nonetheless perform it and improve from it. He proposes a descriptive explanation for the nature of induction in §5 of the Enquiry, titled "Skeptical solution of these doubts". It is by custom or habit that one draws the inductive connection described above, and "without the influence of custom we would be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses." The result of custom is belief, which is instinctual and much stronger than imagination alone. Rather than unproductive radical skepticism about everything, Hume said that he was actually advocating a practical skepticism based on common sense, wherein the inevitability of induction is accepted. Someone who insists on reason for certainty might, for instance, starve to death, as they would not infer the benefits of food based on previous observations of nutrition.

[l a t e r a l u s]

When it comes to Greek music, there is one princess only: ANNA VISSI: listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVSfZKs9Uro

Indeed, Rene, Anna Vissi is a great artist! I have to say, though, that much of her success was due to Nikos Karvelas (her husband - Anna has claimed that the first impression she had when she met Nikos was a "hairy thing," but she was amazed with his talent and his sex appeal) who actually wrote/compose her songs! She has also enjoyed minisuccess in the US, claiming the number one position on the Billboard Dance Charts with "Call Me".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=algXWhcv3Ls

[False Vacuum]

David Hume

David Hume described the problem in "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding," §4, based on his epistemological framework. Here, "reason" refers to deductive reasoning and "induction" refers to inductive reasoning. First, Hume ponders the discovery of causal relations, which form the basis for what he refers to as "matters of fact." He argues that causal relations are found not by reason, but by induction. This is because for any cause, multiple effects are conceivable, and the actual effect cannot be determined by reasoning about the cause; instead, one must observe occurrences of the causal relation to discover that it holds. For example, when one thinks of "a billiard ball moving in a straight line toward another," one can conceive that the first ball bounces back with the second ball remaining at rest, the first ball stops and the second ball moves, or the first ball jumps over the second, etc. There is no reason to conclude any of these possibilities over the others. Only through previous observation can it be predicted, inductively, what will actually happen with the balls. In general, it is not necessary that causal relation in the future resemble causal relations in the past, as it is always conceivable otherwise; for Hume, this is because the negation of the claim does not lead to a contradiction.

Next, Hume ponders the justification of induction. If all matters of fact are based on causal relations, and all causal relations are found by induction, then induction must be shown to be valid somehow. He uses the fact that induction assumes a valid connection between the proposition "I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect" and the proposition "I foresee that other objects which are in appearance similar will be attended with similar effects." One connects these two propositions not by reason, but by induction. This claim is supported by the same reasoning as that for causal relations above, and by the observation that even rationally inexperienced or inferior people can infer, for example, that touching fire causes pain. Hume challenges other philosophers to come up with a (deductive) reason for the connection. If he is right, then the justification of induction can be only inductive. But this begs the question; as induction is based on an assumption of the connection, it cannot itself explain the connection. In this way, the problem of induction is not only concerned with the uncertainty of conclusions derived by induction, but doubts the very principle through which those uncertain conclusions are derived.

So how does Hume gets us out of the woods? Well, he says that although induction is not made by reason, we nonetheless perform it and improve from it. He proposes a descriptive explanation for the nature of induction in §5 of the Enquiry, titled "Skeptical solution of these doubts". It is by custom or habit that one draws the inductive connection described above, and "without the influence of custom we would be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses." The result of custom is belief, which is instinctual and much stronger than imagination alone. Rather than unproductive radical skepticism about everything, Hume said that he was actually advocating a practical skepticism based on common sense, wherein the inevitability of induction is accepted. Someone who insists on reason for certainty might, for instance, starve to death, as they would not infer the benefits of food based on previous observations of nutrition.

Hume's Problem of Causation has remained unsolved for 250 years (Neither Kant nor Popper positively solved it!) and this lack of certainty, at the very heart of Human Scientific Knowledge, has greatly prejudiced our belief in the possibility of Metaphysics and the certainty of Science, and has ultimately led to the extreme skepticism (Postmodernism) of our currently troubled and confused times. It is a delight to read David Hume, who writes brilliantly - beautifully blending clarity, content and style.

When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connexion; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. Experience only teaches us, how one event constantly follows another; without instructing us in the secret connexion, which binds them together, and renders them inseparable. We then call the one object, cause; the other, effect. We suppose that there is some connexion between them; some power in the one, by which it infallibly produces the other, and operates with the greatest certainty and strongest necessity. I say then, that, even after we have experience of the operations of cause and effect, our conclusions from that experience are not founded on (a priori) reasoning, or any process of the understanding.

This then leads to the further Problem of Induction, for if we do not know the a priori cause of events then we have no Principles from which to logically deduce our conclusions. We are left simply observing that one event follows another and seems connected, but we do not know how or why, thus we must depend upon repeated observation (Induction) to determine the Laws of Nature (the current state of Modern Physics) and hence tacitly assuming (without reason) that the future is like the past. (It is simply a habit of thinking to connect two events which seem to occur in conjunction and necessarily assumes that the future will be like the past).

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The idea that the universe has a rational structure that the mind can apprehend characterizes an older trend in European philosophy called "rationalism." Rationalism traces its roots to Rene Descartes and to the birth of modern philosophy. Most of 20th century European philosophy was a direct reaction to this older tradition, a reactionary attempt to explore the possibility that the universe has no rational structure for the mind to apprehend. Phenomenology, for example, as advocated by Edmund Husserl confines itself to observing and describing our own consciousness without drawing any conclusions regarding causes or connections.

The desire for order seems to markedly increase to the degree to which it's painful to believe otherwise. If you lose your job, and it causes you distress and suffering, you want it to mean something. Suffering isn't something that people find terribly problematic. What people do find problematic, it's meaningless suffering. So if you can give that traumatic event meaning by placing it in a bigger picture, you're likely to do so.