[FRIAM] abduction and casuistry

Thu Aug 22 21:47:21 EDT 2019

[image: image.png]
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In light of over thinking, and taking a yet another thread into some as yet
found mirror universe- I less than subtly discrupt with silly memes, as a
not so subtle hint that somethings aint worth over thinking
^Said in a John Clease tone because I haven't a clue how to spell that
amazing mans name

On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 7:26 PM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> Hi, Glen,
>
> This is one of those moments when Steve Smith may be able to rescue my
> ability to participate further in this conversation by making a
> translation.   Steve?  Can you help here?
>
> By the way, I am still puzzled by how one makes inferences or explanations
> without categories and/or principles?  Can you give me an example from
> everyday life?
>
> So, the way into my basement requires passing through a low doorway.
> Every year, in the first week we come here, I go down there and ram my head
> on the top of the door.   Ok, so the next time I go down, as soon as I
> enter the passageway leading to the door, I feel uneasy ...."This is like
> the time I bumped my head" ... and, unless I am demented by haste, I duck
> my head.  Simple as this example is, still it involves (on my account,
> anyway), the application of a principle to a category.
>
> Which suggests to me that when you seem to talk about rule-less thinking
> (unruly thinking?), you actually talking about choosing among different
> sorts of rules and categories, how we decide amongst them, when we decide
> to give up on one and employ another.
>
>  Perhaps this is a way of asking the same question:  As you understand
> "deontological" thought, how is it different from plain-old logical
> thought?
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
> Clark University
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2019 1:49 PM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] abduction and casuistry
>
> Maybe to give context to my hand-wavey colloquial nonsense below, I
> *really* like Gabbay and Woods' [†] formulation of an "abductive schema":
>
> > Let Δ=(A_1,…,A_n) be a *database* of some kind. It could be a theory or
> an inventory of beliefs, for example. Let ⊢ be a *yielding relation*, or,
> in the widest possible sense, a consequence relation. Let Τ be a given wff
> (well-formulated formula) representing, e.g., a fact, a true proposition,
> known state of affairs, etc. And let A_(n+j), j=1,…,k be wffs. Then
> <Δ,⊢,Τ,A_(n+j)> is an abductive resolution if and only if the following
> conditions hold.
> >
> > 1. Δ⋃{A_(n+j)} ⊢ Τ
> > 2. Δ⋃{A_(n+j)} is a consistent set
> > 3. Δ ⊬ Τ
> > 4. {A_(n+j)} ⊬ Τ
> >
> > The generality of this schema allows for variable interpretations of ⊢.
> In standard AI approaches to abduction there is a tendency to treat ⊢ as a
> classical deductive consequence. But, as we have seen, this is
> unrealistically restrictive.
>
> (Emphasis is theirs, at least in the draft copy I have.) They go on to
> assert:
>
> > ⊢ can be treated as a relation which gives with respect to Τ *whatever*
> property the investigator (the abducer) is interested in Τ's having, and
> which is not delivered by Δ alone or by {A_(n+j)} alone.
>
> In my colloquial description, Δ is the collection of old dots there at the
> start of the process and Τ is the new dot. It's open whether or not the set
> of wffs (A) are also dots or part of the connections drawn between them,
> depending on how you feel about *dot composition* (e.g. subsets of dots
> that are all very close together, so we just draw them as one big dot or
> somesuch) and scale/resolution. Rule (2) is *clearly* a rule for how the
> dots can be connected. In general, consistency is also an ambiguous concept.
>
> As always, I'm probably wrong about whatever it is Gabbay and Woods are
> saying. Any errors are mine. But maybe their words above can give some
> context for how I feel about "reasoning from particulars".
>
> [†] https://www.powells.com/book/-9780444517913
>
>
>
> On 8/22/19 8:26 AM, glen∈ℂ wrote:
> > First, did you miss Dave's contribution?  It was more on-topic than mine!
> >
> > On Rigor: Yes, there's quite a bit of what you say I can agree with. But
> only if I modify *my* understanding of "rigor". I think rigor is any
> methodical, systematic behavior to which one adheres to strictly. It is the
> fidelity, the strict adherence that defines "rigor", not the underlying
> structure of the method or system. And in that sense, one can be rigorously
> anti-method. Rigorously pro-method means adhering to that method and never
> making exceptions. Rigorously anti-method means *never* following a method
> and paying (infinite) attention to all exceptions, i.e. treating everything
> as a single instance particular, an exception. I grant that "methodical
> anti-method" is a paradox... but only that, not a contradiction.
> >
> > On monism vs. monotheism: The simple answer is "no". I'm not confusing
> the two. By reducing every-stuff to one-stuff, *and* talking about types of
> inference like ab-, in-, and de-duction, you are being (at least in my
> view) axiomatic, with a formal system based on 1 ur-element. Everything
> else in the formal system has to be derived from that ur-element via rules.
> To boot, your attempt to classify casuistry and abduction (same or
> different is irrelevant, it's the classification effort that matters)
> argues for some sort of formalization of them. A/The formalization of
> abduction is an active research topic. My use of the word "deontological"
> was intended to refer to this rule-based, axiomatic way of thinking. I'm
> sorry if that lead to a red herring off into moral philosophy land.
> >
> > On inferring from particulars: While it's true that induction builds a
> predicate around a particular, it is a "closed" set. (Scare quotes because
> "closed" can mean so much.) Abduction doesn't build predicates and any
> explanation it does build is "open" in some sense. So, I would agree with
> you that one can't really *argue* from a particular using abduction. I tend
> to think of it more like brain storming, in a kindasorta Popperian, open
> way. Any proto-hypothesis can be brought to bear on the abductive target.
> And the best we can do is play around with the abductive target to see if
> it might kindasorta *fit* into that open set of proto-hypotheses. Once you
> land on a set of proto-hypotheses that's small enough to be feasibly
> formulated into testable hypotheses, then you reason by induction over
> those hypotheses.
> >
> > In some ways, this would be very like what I, in my ignorance, think
> casuistry is. I'd argue that an experimentalist's focus on putting data
> taking in 1st priority and hypothesis formulation in 2nd priority falls in
> the same camp. So, I agree that casuistry looks a lot like abduction. But I
> don't think that that criminologist was doing either of them.
> >
> > On ontology vs. rules *and* reasoning from particulars: The
> proto-hypotheses I mention above do not have to take the form of "rules to
> apply" to the abductive target. Think of the game "connect the dots", where
> the dots are particulars and they are/can be interpolated and/or
> extrapolated by an infinite number of lines between them. On the one hand,
> more dots can make it more difficult to find a pattern that includes the
> *new* dot, but perhaps only when you're already pre-biased with a set of
> lines that connect the old dots. On the other hand, if you're rule-free
> when you look at the old set of dots *and* rule-free when you look at them
> with the new dot included, you're open to any set of connecting lines.
> >
> > Of course, in science, we do have an ur-rule ... that *all* the dots
> must be connected. So, that constrains the set of lines that connect the
> dots. And the more dots, the fewer ways there are to connect them. But
> practicality demands that we doubt at least some dots. So, we're allowed to
> throw out the weakest dots if that allows us to form more interesting
> connective patterns.
> >
> > So, in this scenario, the proto-hypotheses are really just collections
> of old dots in which the new dot must sit.  We're not reasoning from *one*
> particular to testable hypotheses. We're reasoning from the addition of
> that particular to collections of other particulars.
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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