Lesson Summary - 27th November

How do we gain knowledge through reasoning? I'm not quite sure actually, but in the lesson we touched on two different types of reasoning's which may help explain why we think the way we do.

deductive reasoning is reasoning from the general to the specific:
fact #1: spinsters are single
fact #2: Aunty Jean is a spinster

deductive conclusion? Aunty Jean is single

easy? easy.
okay, so then we moved onto INDUCTIVE REASONING, which is basically the opposite, reasoning from the specific to the general.
fact #1: Aunty Jean is a spinster
fact #2: Aunty Jean is happy

inductive conclusion? Spinsters are happy.

This is all really a simple concept. However, there are problems with this type of reasoning...Just because i see a lot of something doesn't prove anything. It only proves that this item exists, it does not prove that another type of it does not exist. Confusing? Okay, basically, what I'm saying is:

I see one white swan.

Then another white swan. Then another. After a few years, I've seen PLENTY of white swans, but never any other swans of another color. Therefore i can safely induct from each specific incident that swans are white. However, i cannot, on the other hand say

swans are not black.

Just because I've never seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Inductive reasoning occurs quite often in life. If something has often occured in the past, there's a good chance it will occur again. But, when you really think about it, that not an extremely reliable conclusion.
Par example: Susan is a basketball player. She has a 1/5 chance of shooting a basket.
She's managed to shoot 6 baskets. Does this mean that she will definetly be able to score the next basket? NO it doesnt. She STILL only has a 1 in 5 chance of scoring. It's just that us, humans have a tendency to see what we want to see and remember what we want to remember.

yup. that's all folks.
25 more days till christmas!!!!!! :)