Talk:New riddle of induction

message: QUESTION:
Why does the article say that "Rachel Turner and Kate keiley (sic)" coined these terms????  Please correct.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.3.147.249 (talk) 14:23, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

message: I changed the definition of grue to something truer to Goodman.  Never examined emeralds can be grue, but this is not possible given the definition found in the last revision.  This is important dialectically, so that green can be defined in terms of grue and bleen.  I also added the most common response to the riddle and its basic problem.  --Lapidary 23:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of grue 

message: "A large number of the world's languages, including Welsh and Ubykh, do not distinguish colour terms for "green" and "blue", using the same word for both." This is inaccurate, at least for Welsh. Welsh does distinguish between green (gwyrdd) and blue (glas); it is however a fact that English and Welsh do not always agree on what is green or blue. Also, we can see that English may consider grass blue, as does Welsh.
:The only English I've ever heard that references blue grass is the music genre.
:: Bluegrass is also a well-known genus of plants see Bluegrass (grass)--Hq3473 19:34, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What about Japanese aoi (青い)? Shouldn't be hard to get this verified with a  editor. Verification for Ubykh is a bit more difficult, since the language has been extinct since October 1992. LambiamTalk 22:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other languages 

message: Do it: it's one encyclopedia topic, two dictionary entries. Pol098 23:41, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Not only are they the same topic, but Bleen should not even be a disambiguation page.  That problem will be taken care of if they are merged. -- Natalya 19:55, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Merge Nelson Goodman's sense if you like, but the term grue also pops up in linguistics, so I think that sense of "grue" should be left here. thefamouseccles 23:24, 28 Mar 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm... perhaps merge the two pages, with Grue as the main page and Bleen as a redirect.  Then create Grue (disambiguation) for that meaning and also for Grue (monster), which really should be disambiugately linked from this page anyway instead of in the "See also" section. -- Natalya 03:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, make Bleen redirect to Grue. Who's gonna do it? This doesn't require admin action, just boldness. The page should then make "Bleen" more prominent, as in: "Grue and bleen are artificial adjectives...". LambiamTalk 22:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Grue (color). 

message: I am moving to talk this paragraph:
"The explanation of the above is that the "problem" is not a legitimate problem. It's a matter of choice, or put differently, a matter of freedom. Hence, the "problem" cannot legitimately be situated within the realm of inductive logic. Therefore, inductive logic finds itself compelled to classify the phenomenon as a problem, while in truth it is not. So within the realm of inductive logic no conclusive answer will ever be found."
This "solution" needs to be sourced before it can be included.--Hq3473 20:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed solution

message: Can this article perhaps be categorized "Paradoxes"? --Popperipopp 15:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Categorization

message: Karl Popper says about Goodman's paradox:
"This is not a paradox, to be formulated and dissolved by linguistic investigations, but it is a demonstrable theorem of the calculus of probability. The theorem can be formulated as follows:
The calculus of probability is incompatible with the conjecture that probability is ampliative (and therefore inductive)." (p. xxxvii)
"ampliative" means:
"It is the idea that evidence e - say, that all swans in Austria are white - will somehow increase the probability of a statement that goes beyond e, such  as ... In other words, the idea is that evidence makes things beyond what it actually asserts at least a little more probable."
He concludes:
"Thus there is no spill-over, no ampliative support: there is no ampliative probability, neither for swans nor for emeralds. And this is not absurd, but tautological (and it is unaffected by translation)."
Karl Popper: Realism and the Aim of Science. From the Postcript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery. Edited by W. W. Bartley, III. Rowman and Littlefield Totowa, New Jersey.1983. ISBN: 0-8476-7015-5. (Introduction 1982)
--Meffo (talk) 18:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: +1  My knee-jerk reaction is that I really like Popper's view, it resonates.  A properly worded version of Popper's statements seem suitable for inclusion in this article, right? linas (talk) 03:42, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Karl Popper

message: Two questions.  These are honest questions; I am much puzzled by the article:
1. On what grounds does Goodman's hypothetical opponent object to the definition of grue?  There is no reason why a color could not be so defined, but what objection to the definition would constitute begging the question? 
2. Is Goodman's thesis simply that induction cannot provide certain conclusions? 
We already know that deductive logic provides certain conclusions from certain premises and inductive logic produces merely probable conclusions without the need for absolutely certain premises. 
We need induction because the only certain premises concern abstractions(e.g. the properties of the imaginary unit, i*); while observations of concrete things (e.g. the color of an emerald at the moment at which one is observing it), let alone conclusions induced from those observations (e.g. the color of an emerald on January 2nd, 3000), can always be mistaken.
Does the grue concept address this and, if so, how? 
*Even the most complete solipsism cannot throw doubt on the proposition that i2=-1, because that is the definition of i.
Randomundergrad  —Preceding comment was added at 23:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The puzzle presented by Goodman is that we as humans accept that by observing diamonds we can come to the inductive conclusion that "all diamonds are green", yet by the same inductive logic we also must come to the conclusion that "all diamonds are grue" (since empirical data supports both conclusions perfectly). Yet, as humans we do no consider current data sufficient to come to the "grue" conclusion. The puzzle is why is the current data enough for "green" conclusion but not for "grue" conclusion. Hope this helps. --Hq3473 (talk) 16:21, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for clarification 

message: In the proposed resolutions, I see analogies to the evolving definition of the metre:
# Grue is less fundamental because it is defined in terms of blue and green. Defeated by the fact that green can be defined in terms of grue and bleen.
# Grue2011 can be defined in terms of blue and green. It is defeated by defining green2011 in terms of grue and bleen.
# Green2011 can be defined as colors closer to the spectrum of some reference emerald than to that of the Logan sapphire held at the Smithsonian. But then this has the same problem as the Sevres kilogram: the properties of the reference might change.
Conspicuous by its absence is a resolution analogous to one proposed in 1893: "Blue" is any color whose visible component is closer to the spectrum of Rec. 709 blue than to that of Rec. 709 green or Rec. 709 red. How can this be worked into the article? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 15:43, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with that idea is that instead of questioning whether "green" or "blue" are primitives, you can question whether "having a particular numeric value" is a primitive.  You can define "grue-lookup" and "bleen-lookup" as what we would normally think of as "has the green/blue value on the chart before time t, and has the blue/green value after t".  Then you can point out that the actual chart is defined so that its points change from grue-lookup to bleen-lookup as of a certain date.  And then raise the question "how can we say that this chart, which changes from grue-lookup to bleen-lookup, is simpler than this other chart which is grue-lookup all along?" Ken Arromdee (talk) 03:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Analogy to the history of weights and measures 

message: David Deutsch's book The Fabric of Reality has a chapter (or two) on the problem of induction including an argument similar to this and a response to it that isn't one of the responses listed (which to me all seem like Straw men).  It's been awhile since I read it, so I don't remember the neologisms used, but the "problem" concerns a new theory of gravity where everything falls except for this one person (the speaker) who floats, then defining some word so that you can still say "everything flalls (or whatever the new word was)".  The argument continues by using "flalls" as a primitive and redefining "floats" and "falls" in terms of it, analogously to the arguments in the first response listed.  It then responds to that by taking the use of "flalls" to it's absurd conclusion.  If "flalls" were to be used as a primitive than that one special person who needs to be mentioned in the disjunctive definitions of "floats" and "falls" would be so important scientists would be lining up before the child's birth to find out why that child is such an integral part of our scientific theory and language.  Even if the discovery isn't made until after the birth, that person would be the most heavily studied being in history.  This insane situation shows why "flalls" can never be a primitive.
Analogously, if "grue" were a primitive, it could only be used relative to variable t, in which case the second response holds, or the time t would have to be constant, and would therefore be a special time somehow extremely different from other times.  If this special time is one of the seemingly normal moments ticking away right now, then it's specialness is completely bonkers (sorry, I meant "absurd").  If however, the time is special in some way, such as being the beginning (or end) of the universe than the distinction between grue and green (or blue) hardly seems important.
If it seems confusing, I'd consult the book.  I believe the chapter I'm referring to is just a big dialogue between two people, one trying to solve the problem of induction and the other poking holes.  It'd probably be a better help than me at explaining the original argument and applying it to the Grue/Bleen problem.
--SurrealWarrior (talk) 22:14, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Response 

message: This article is ridiculously esoteric.  I think somebody needs to explain more clearly exactly what "grue" is (and without resorting to theory or examples).  What is "grue"?  This article makes no sense to me and I suspect that it doesn't make much sense to anyone who hasn't taken a survey course in philosophy of science. EttaLove (talk) 22:00, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Esoteric

message: I think the article is excellent, but I have a question about the paradox. 
I build a decision machine.
I put the object in the input box, where a light shines on the object.
A sensor sits behind a yellow filter. If the light from the object is green, the buzzer rings. If the light is blue, then it is filtered out and no buzzer rings.
My definition of green is: "An object X satisifies the proposition X is green if the buzzer rings when X is inserted in the box."
How does one define grue in this case so it is not disjunctive? Dilaudid (talk) 09:03, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on Ken's comments above it appears that the buzzer sounding can be redefined as not primitive. A buzzer sounding before the year 3000 is a buzzlence ( a word meaning a buzz before the year 3000, or silence afterwards ) but after 3000 is not a buzzlence. Hence the the non-disjunctive definition of grue is "X is grue if the buzzer buzzlences when X is inserted into the box". Any comments on this word-mince? Dilaudid (talk) 13:53, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apologies - another question about the paradox 

message: The article N-universes mentions "Occam's razor" and it got me to think: surely grue is not minimal from the complexity point of view?  Complexity, here, would be Kolmogorov complexity or Solomonoff induction.  Such an argument is similar to the Bayesian argument discussed above, wherein one assumes that priors must be minimal.  To be precise, though, I am  obliged to point out that complexity is language dependent, so its possible that there are aliens who would find grue more parsimonious than green, although Kolomogorov complexity puts a limit on the scope of such languages, and such paradoxes... has no philosopher yet attacked this question from this angle? linas (talk) 03:32, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: There's GOT to be some philospher out there that's made a Occam's razor based rebuttal and justified green as more parsimonious using Kolmogorov complexity. After all, green is a subset of the wavelengths in the visible spectrum. Specifying green is just "Wavelength_of_Emerald=540nm", while grue requires something like  "if year ≥ 2000AD( Wavelength_of_Emerald=540nm) else (Wavelength_of_Emerald=460nm)" which is over twice as complicated. A good step towards improving this article would be finding the philosopher who has made that (rather obvious) rebuttal and citing them. But googling has not revealed such a source Can anyone more philosophy-paper-literate think of someone? 24.243.183.180 (talk) 06:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  argument from complexity? 

message: WP DEPENDS ON INDUCTION & DEDUCTION. THEIR MEANING SHOULD BE FIRM.
This encyclopedia accepts the premise of enumerative induction that the more editors who agree on the content of an article, the more accurate and useful that content. Induction is practiced on every TALK page. Editors generalize from a few observations, and deduce concrete conclusions from their generalizations.
WP contains 4 repetitive and fragmentary articles on induction: [Inductive reasoning], [The problem of induction]; [New riddle of induction],[Inductivism]. I would like to rectify this chaotic situation by rewriting and merging these 4 articles, retaining only the reasoning title. I ask you—a participant in relevant TALK pages—to judge my rewrite/merge project: SHOULD I PROCEED? Below is the current proposed outline:
Definitions. Induction generalizes conceptually; deduction concludes empirically.
[David Hume], philosopher condemner.
[Pierre Duhem], physicist user.
[John Dewey], philosopher explainer.
[Bertrand Russell], philosopher condemner.
[Karl Popper], philosopher condemner.
Steven Sloman, psychologist explainer.
Lyle E. Bourne, Jr., psychologist user.
[Daniel Kahneman], psychologist user.
[Richard H. Thaler] economist user.
Please respond at Talk:Inductive reasoning.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by TBR-qed (talk • contribs) 16:01, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Induction & deduction 

message: Some vaccines confer lifetime immunity.  Polio leaps to mind as an example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine
Some vaccines are known to give immunity for a period of time, and then must be renewed or boosted.  Tetanus leaps to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booster_dose#Tetanus_booster_dose
Some diseases mutate so rapidly that everybody has to get vaccinated periodically, say, once a year, in order to have continuous protection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_vaccine  Influenza might be a good example, except that the scientists who decide what next year's epidemic is going to be frequently get it wrong and then it doesn't work well (most of the time, they do a pretty good job).
Some diseases have not been present long enough to know.  The vaccines for the novel corona viruses fall into this category.  We have enough experience with the disease at this time (January 24th, 2022) to know that 2 shots are not enough, the new minimum is 3.  The Israelis have done or are doing an experiment to see if a 4th shot would be helpful and the answer so far seems to be "we don't know yet"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_Israel.   But it might be the case that in, say, 2023, a fourth shot would be helpful. We honestly do not know.  We probably cannot know, but it is possible that an advance in technology will allow for a better prediction.
There is another hypothesis to be considered.  It is hypothetically possible that everybody who gets COVID-19 dies within 10 years.  100%  COVID-19 infection means death within 10 years.  The novel coronavirus hasn't been around for 10 years, yet.  There is another disease, shingles, in which the 
varicella zoster virushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_zoster_virus can remain dormant for years or decadeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles.  100% death due to coronavirus infection within 10 years is a real world "new riddle of induction" problem.
Don't be as a chicken with regards to the farmer's wife: get vaccinated.
Vaxvms (talk) 07:27, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yet another real world example: the effectiveness of vaccines 

message: At the bottom row, it says "bleen" instead of green. 103.102.87.140 (talk) 15:07, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the image is right. Following your suggestion, green would be defined in terms of itself. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 17:43, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  There is a typo in the first image.