Inductive reasoning and Cross-induction

This post is an introduction to the method of inductive reasoning and the problem of induction. It also introduces an interesting answer to the problem, called cross-induction (this post is more or less a transcription of a video that I made a couple of months ago, feel free to check it out:)

Why do you think there's going to be a tomorrow? The future is uncertain. You don’t know what it brings. But still you make claims about it. Claims like:

1. The sun will rise tomorrow.

We don’t know that. But still, we all believe that. Why? What’s our rational justification for believing anything about the future?

Occam's razor (and why we use it)

This post provides an explanation of Occam's razor and why we use it - again, it's basically a transcription of a video that I made a couple of months ago (feel free to check it out):



Suppose you hear a vase break.

You go to the living room and there's little Jimmy, next to the broken vase. He says that a cat did it.

But you don't even have a cat in this household.

So, Jimmy says, some cat must have sneaked in from the outside.

You remember closing all the windows and doors.

So, he says, it must have entered the house before you closed them.