Just inducting probabilities and then deducting the most likely outcome.
I find it’s good practice to be deeply suspicious of the word “just.” Small words in arguments are often load-bearing in ways that hide much of the meaning from casual readers. E.g. LLMs are just applied arithmetic, biology is just applied chemistry, chemistry is just applied physics, etc. There is a sense in which this is ‘true’ in each case, but that does not make the less-fundamental concepts useless or unnecessary, and straightforwardly ‘believing’ such ‘just’ statements tends to cause poor thinking down the line in a variety of ways.
In this case, my own (not at all formal, just my sense) understanding is that while induction and deduction are largely about interpreting and reasoning regarding facts/data, abduction is largely about applying, proposing, and evaluating models and heuristics. At some level, yes, we can say that this is unnecessary. But in practice, keeping these as interrelated-but-separate mental objects helps people track which is which, notice when we need to reconsider and re-evaluate what models and assumptions we’re applying, and not get lost in our own ontologies. My mental model/example of this is any of the times SSC/ACX takes a useful analogy/metaphor and pushes it just that much farther than any sane normie would go, in order to find out whether it breaks or provides useful insight.
Basically, yeah. Most times I see abduction discussed, it’s less about drawing conclusions and more about hypothesis generation. That implies different permissible levels of making and breaking assumptions, choosing and changing models. It’s more fluid, less rule-bound, more willing to accept being knowingly wrong in some ways, less tied to formalisms and precise methods.
I find it’s good practice to be deeply suspicious of the word “just.” Small words in arguments are often load-bearing in ways that hide much of the meaning from casual readers. E.g. LLMs are just applied arithmetic, biology is just applied chemistry, chemistry is just applied physics, etc. There is a sense in which this is ‘true’ in each case, but that does not make the less-fundamental concepts useless or unnecessary, and straightforwardly ‘believing’ such ‘just’ statements tends to cause poor thinking down the line in a variety of ways.
In this case, my own (not at all formal, just my sense) understanding is that while induction and deduction are largely about interpreting and reasoning regarding facts/data, abduction is largely about applying, proposing, and evaluating models and heuristics. At some level, yes, we can say that this is unnecessary. But in practice, keeping these as interrelated-but-separate mental objects helps people track which is which, notice when we need to reconsider and re-evaluate what models and assumptions we’re applying, and not get lost in our own ontologies. My mental model/example of this is any of the times SSC/ACX takes a useful analogy/metaphor and pushes it just that much farther than any sane normie would go, in order to find out whether it breaks or provides useful insight.
Apologies, I am not sure I understood.
Is it that:
- Induction/Deduction fit data to existing models
- Abduction is about proposing new models?
Basically, yeah. Most times I see abduction discussed, it’s less about drawing conclusions and more about hypothesis generation. That implies different permissible levels of making and breaking assumptions, choosing and changing models. It’s more fluid, less rule-bound, more willing to accept being knowingly wrong in some ways, less tied to formalisms and precise methods.