What's the difference between causation and correlation?

@Satan phil,

The next couple lines could probably create a whole new thread on their own (many aspects of which have been covered in past threads, namely: http://www.philosophyforum.com/forum/philosophy-forums/branches-philosophy/logic/4696-absolute-truth-unobtainable-20.html#post73144).

I'm left questioning the notion of "truth" you speak of, then. Do you believe we have access to "truth"? If so, what methods of reasoning allow us "truth"? It seems there is some implied absolutism to this notion of "truth", isn't there (which is why I included "necessary" in one of my past posts - a word that you concluded was part of a straw man)? A certainty that seems to be elusive.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;73145 wrote:

I'm left questioning the notion of "truth" you speak of, then. Do you believe we have access to "truth"? If so, what methods of reasoning allow us "truth"?

Deduction. The statement "all bachelors are unmarried men" is a "truth".

@Satan phil,

Satan;73152 wrote:

Deduction. The statement "all bachelors are unmarried men" is a "truth".

But it's only a "truth" because semantics dictates that bachelors, by definition, have to be unmarried. It's a necessary condition we've created, as you've noted.

This is a personal question, I understand that, but do you value deductive reasoning more than inductive reasoning? And if so, why?

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;73155 wrote:

But it's only a "truth" because semantics dictates that bachelors, by definition, have to be unmarried. We've created it, as you've noted.

Yes, ironic isn't it? Necessary truths don't tell us anything about the world. The statement "it will either rain or not rain tomorrow" is necessarily true and it also gives you absolutely no information about the world. It doesn't even matter what the word "rain" means in that sentence. It'll be true regardless. The only reason why these things are true is because we say they are. We define them to be true.

The other kinds of truths, contingent truths, are about the world and we don't have direct access to them. The statement "the cat is on the mat" is true if and only if the cat is on the mat. Such claims will always be conditional, tentative and open to future investigation.

Zetherin;73155 wrote:

This is a personal question, I understand that, but do you value deductive reasoning more than inductive reasoning? And if so, why?

I don't think either one would be of much value without the other.

@Satan phil,

I agree with you. But with that said, what did you mean here:

Satan wrote:

Maybe you just don't get it. Read Hume. There's no reason to think the principle of induction holds at all. Not necessarily. Not probably. Not at all. It's not based on rationality. It's based on convention.

I understand Hume's insight, but why is there no reason to think induction "holds at all". What defines it's ability to... hold? It doesn't necessarily hold, but strong induction does probably hold, does it not? I understand it's regarded as "non-rational".

I guess what I'm really asking is: What does acknowledging Hume's insight allow us? Do we gain any new knowledge from this? As philosophers or thinkers, should the way we reason change? (can it change?) Why acknowledge the distinction in the first place?

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;73160 wrote:

I understand Hume's insight, but why is there no reason to think induction "holds at all". What defines it's ability to... hold? It doesn't necessarily hold, but strong induction does probably hold, does it not? I understand it's regarded as "non-rational".

Not in any objective sense.

Bayesian probability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prior probability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Principle of indifference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We're starting from ignorance and updating our model from there. In a sense we are running a race with an invisible finish line. How far away are we from the "truth"? Have we crossed it yet? Perhaps. We can only say how well our model works. We have no idea if it actually looks like how things really are.

Zetherin;73160 wrote:

I guess what I'm really asking is: What does acknowledging Hume's insight allow us? Do we gain any new knowledge from this? As philosophers or thinkers, should the way we reason change? (can it change?) Why acknowledge the distinction in the first place?

Since we are really just trimming away some metaphysical cruft and making philosophy a little more empirical, you can expect most of the problems solved to be philosophical. The article I posted earlier mentions dissolving the problem of free will and determinism. There are several other areas in which this could be applicable. I think it's a completely different way of looking at the world so it's impossible to say what new insights it could bring.

@Satan phil,

Thanks for the links, Satan - I've never heard of any of these. I'm going to read up on all of this, and perhaps I'll post again when I'm better informed.

Great discussion, guys!

@Satan phil,

Satan;73159 wrote:

true.

The other kinds of truths, contingent truths, are about the world and we don't have direct access to them. The statement "the cat is on the mat" is true if and only if the cat is on the mat. Such claims will always be conditional, tentative and open to future investigation.

What does, "direct access" mean in this context? If what you mean by, "conditional, tentative, and open to future investigation" is that we are not absolutely certain that the cat is on the mat, I agree. But, on the other hand, when I know the cat is on the mat, that does not imply that it is certain that the cat is on the mat. But I am interested in just why you think that when the cat on the mat is directly in front of me, that I don't have "direct access" to the cat being on the mat. Let me ask it in this way? What would it be for me to have direct access to the cat being on the mat if its being right in front of me is not direct access? What, exactly, is it that I do not have which I would have if I did have direct access?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;73218 wrote:

What does, "direct access" mean in this context? If what you mean by, "conditional, tentative, and open to future investigation" is that we are not absolutely certain that the cat is on the mat, I agree. But, on the other hand, when I know the cat is on the mat, that does not imply that it is certain that the cat is on the mat. But I am interested in just why you think that when the cat on the mat is directly in front of me, that I don't have "direct access" to the cat being on the mat. Let me ask it in this way? What would it be for me to have direct access to the cat being on the mat if its being right in front of me is not direct access? What, exactly, is it that I do not have which I would have if I did have direct access?

Direct access as in when we know "2 + 2 = 4" or that "bachelors are unmarried men". Those things which are not dependent on observation.

@Satan phil,

Is 2+2=4 a truth? I mean it's a plain old tautology, so how is it "true" except insofar as that's how we assign the four symbols in that statement?

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;73160 wrote:

I understand Hume's insight, but why is there no reason to think induction "holds at all". What defines it's ability to... hold? It doesn't necessarily hold, but strong induction does probably hold, does it not? I understand it's regarded as "non-rational".

I guess what I'm really asking is: What does acknowledging Hume's insight allow us? Do we gain any new knowledge from this? As philosophers or thinkers, should the way we reason change? (can it change?) Why acknowledge the distinction in the first place?

Well, what Hume's insight allows us is the idea that induction is based in custom rather than pure thought. Hume was pretty much speaking out against the idea that we can derive what will happen in the future with pure thought. Hume is not denying that we cannot use induction as a useful tool, but rather that it takes experience and custom to come to potential conclusions about the future. What Hume was really doing is liberating human thought from the dogmatic beliefs of the rationalists and their innate ideas. Not to mention, he is also addressing and countering Berkeley's views of empiricism. Hume's empiricism is very liberating to the potentiality of the future. Rather than being deterministic, it is based on accumulated knowledge. Hume is liberating human understanding from the dogmatic understandings of it previous to his thought.

I do recommend that you read Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. It is a rather fascinating view about the how human beings can and do understand the world around them.

@Aedes,

Aedes;73248 wrote:

Is 2+2=4 a truth? I mean it's a plain old tautology, so how is it "true" except insofar as that's how we assign the four symbols in that statement?

I'm not sure what you mean. We create certain axioms, postulates and definitions to form a logical system and under that system we define certain relationships as true or false. Under the system of classical logic, tautologies are always true. There's nothing beyond analytic truths than that.

@Satan phil,

There is no "2" in the world.

There may be 2 rocks, 2 hedgehogs, or 2 bananas, but there is no "2" by itself. It's an abstraction.

2+2=4 is a statement that defines 2 and 4 in one another's terms. But it's no more true or less true (or informative) than 1.9 + 2.1 = 4, 1.09 + 2.01 = 4, 1.009 + 2.001 = 4, etc. In EVERY SINGLE situation in which the symbol 4 can be used, the symbol 2+2 would be regarded as synonymous. So the statement 2+2=4 can't really be said to be "true" it just is what it is, it's circular.

@Aedes,

Aedes;73263 wrote:

So the statement 2+2=4 can't really be said to be "true" it just is what it is, it's circular.

Of course it's true. It's not false. There's no other option.

@Satan phil,

Perhaps Aedes is trying to point out that there is no "truth" outside of logical systems. That is, there is no, "how things really are". The only things we define as "true" are tautologies or deductions defined by our logical systems. 2+2=4 is "true" within the context of a certain logical system (mathematics), but it's not "true" outside of this system. There is no "truth" out of context.

@Satan phil,

There is no truth outside of context. I think that is one of the main points of Hume.

@Satan phil,

There are two kinds of truth:

1. True by definition. (2+2=4, all bachelors are unmarried)

2. True by correspondence with reality. (the cat is on the mat, it is raining outside)

If you deny either of these then I think we will have some problems communicating.

@Satan phil,

#2 was a big topic in the "Absolute Truth is Unobtainable" thread.

I still don't understand how we can derive "truth" from correspondence with reality. If one can only observe a certain amount of things in a certain amount of time, how do we ever know things which are dependent on temporal or spatial qualities? If I took my eyes off the cat on the mat (and I'm presuming that visual cues would be a factor in determining the "truth" here), does the "truth" still remain? Of course if the cat got up off the mat, it wouldn't be true anymore, would it? But how in the world can I verify this? It's not practical to view the cat all day.

So, this basically boils down to: I can only be certain of those things which I am observing at any given moment to be true, right? And of course my certainty is fleeting, as I'm rarely observing the same thing for an extended period of time. And we haven't even touched on things like our eyes deceiving us. None of it seems to make any sense. So, I ask, how can we as humans deem "truth" through correspondence with reality?

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;73271 wrote:

None of it seems to make any sense. So, I ask, how can we as humans deem "truth" through correspondence with reality?

Good question. I don't know. It seems like when I say a proposition such as "the cat is on the mat" is true, it means that the world is in a certain state of affairs so as to correspond or reflect the arrangement of that proposition.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;73271 wrote:

#2 was a big topic in the "Absolute Truth is Unobtainable" thread.

I still don't understand how we can derive "truth" from correspondence with reality. If one can only observe a certain amount of things in a certain amount of time, how do we ever know things which are dependent on temporal or spatial qualities? If I took my eyes off the cat on the mat (and I'm presuming that visual cues would be a factor in determining the "truth" here), does the "truth" still remain? Of course if the cat got up off the mat, it wouldn't be true anymore, would it? But how in the world can I verify this? It's not practical to view the cat all day.

So, this basically boils down to: I can only be certain of those things which I am observing at any given moment to be true, right? And of course my certainty is fleeting, as I'm rarely observing the same thing for an extended period of time. And we haven't even touched on things like our eyes deceiving us. None of it seems to make any sense. So, I ask, how can we as humans deem "truth" through correspondence with reality?

If the cat leaves the mat, then it is not true that the cat is on the mat. You do not have to know that it is true, for a statement to be true; but a statement need be true for you to know it is true. So, whether or not you know something is true has nothing to do with whether the statement is, in fact true. You are confusing knowledge with truth. There were many truths we did not know but were true anyway (e.g. that there were electrons in the 15th century), and there are many truths now that we do not know are true. And, before there were any people on Earth who could know the truth. there were truths. For example, that there were stars in the sky. Again, knowledge implies truth, but truth does not imply knowledge.

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