Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/03/30

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Leica & Contax test
From: Martin Howard <marho@ikp.liu.se>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 13:18:00 +0200

Eric Welch wrote:
> 
> At 12:20 AM 3/30/99 +0200, you wrote:
> >All humans are naive inductivists.  Some just don't acknowledge it.
> 
> And what is this supposed to mean? 
>

Eric, my comment was to Peter K, who seemed to be arguing that unless
you have experiences something, you cannot common upon it.  Which, of
course, is nonsense.  We do this all the time and you provided excellent
examples of how we all act in everyday life.

A naive inductivist is someone who extrapolates from the experiences
they've had to encompass the whole world.  All humans do this: it's how
we deal with the complexity of life.

My point about some not acknowledging this meant that many people
believe that they are free of bias, prejudice or predisposition, which,
again, is nonsense.  We act in accordance with our biases and prejudices
all the time.

Obviously there needs to be some balance: IMO, we should strive to
enrich our experiences and try to be aware of our biases and
preferences.  But to not acknowledge them is ludicrous and hazardous.
And to suggest that someone cannot have an opinion about item X based
upon experiences of similar items Y and Z is just plain wrong.  We all
do this, all the time.  Now, those opinions may not be the most
informed, correct or nuanced, and may need to be moderated, enlightened,
or modified at times, but for much of everyday life, it's how we work.


M.

- -- 
Martin Howard, Grad. Schl. for Human-Machine Interaction,  |
HMI/IKP, Linkoping University, SE-581 83 Linkoping, Sweden.|    Just
Tel: +46 13 28 5741; Fax: +46 28 2579; ICQ: 354739         | say "DOOH"
E-mail: marho@ikp.liu.se; www.iav.ikp.liu.se/staff/marho/  +------------