Re: [lojban] Induction

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 05:54 PM 8/26/01 -0400, Invent Yourself wrote:
> How do we express logical induction in Lojban? In Cowan's explanation why
> certain gismu were dropped, he writes
>
>   didni   deduce          replaced by lujvo using logji = logic
>
> logji seems to refer to the rules that permit deduction, whereas nibli
> refers to the facts that are deduced.
>
> What about induction? In the list of slaughtered gismu, it shows
>
>  nusna induction x1 induces x2 about x3 from specific facts x4
>
> And in Cowan's reasons
>
>  nusna   induction       who knows what "induction" is?

Obviously, he knew by the time he wrote the book below.

> -----
>
> The Book reads:
>
> "...whereas ``su'a'' suggests some sort of induction or pattern
> recognition from existing examples (not necessarily rigorous). The
> opposite point of the scale, ``su'anai'', indicates abduction, or drawing
> specific conclusions from general premises or patterns."
>
> What is the difference between abduction and deduction?
>
> Does this means that induction = sucta, and deduction = nibli ~= tolsucta?

nibli certainly refers to deduction.

By induction, I had meant to refer to the process commonly known as the 
"scientific method", which indeed pertains to pattern recognition followed 
by testing.  As a method of knowing something, both the words for deduction 
and induction had plausible uses in x4 of djuno "epistemology" sumti.

But lojbab lost that argument.

lojbab
--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                    703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org