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alien abductions

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What justifies our perception of reality?

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mob mentality?

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what constitutes certainty in knowledge?

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To what extent does intuition validate truth?

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the title is saying that without the assumption that things are the same for everyone/everything, there can be no knowledge. knowledge cannot be valid if it does not apply to equal things- circumstancial/subjective- knowledge is subjective- cannot assume to know things without context

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Knowledge can exist without the assumption of uniformities.
- faith- just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't real, extreme cases exist, cannot disregard singularities, not everything is the same but knowledge can still exist for these

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- soda/pop/different names for things
- how do we know that colors are the same for everyone
- the assumption that everyone feels the same as we do

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Knowledge cannot exist without the assumption of uniformities.
- repeated trials, outliers, coincidence

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how do we know when something is real knowledge?
- what if all conclusions so far have been extreme coincidence?

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idk but how we assume something is right when other people get the same answer

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Many people who visit the Mandela Effect website have fond memories of the Berenstein Bears books. They read them as children, or family members read them aloud. It's a cherished childhood memory.

However, the books in this timestream are Berenstain Bears. A, not E, in last syllable.

That's not what most visitors seem to remember. The following are among the many memories people have shared, sometimes as part of longer comments. The vast majority recall the books as Beren stein Bears.

In March 2014, JM said:

I too clearly remember it as 'Berenstein' even though I never read the books. Why would anyone change that? Seems irrelevant.

Jennifer Shepherd said:

I had overlooked the material here about people remembering the popular children's books as being Berenstein Bears, not Berenstain Bears; I just saw that today and it blew my mind! I was a meticulous spelling nerd as a child and have ZERO doubt that the books the kids were reading were about the Berenstein Bears. I tried to research Library of Congress and trademark info today, to see if maybe there had at some point been a changeover due to multiple parties using variations of the name. Nope, the official records state that the series was always Berenstain, after the very real last names of the authors (Berenstain.)

In April 2014, Tee said:

I notice changes everyday. For one I saw the Berenstein/Berenstain Bears thing mentioned and I always knew them is Berenstein.

Nat replied:

Berenstain Bears?! I could've sworn it was spelt Berenstein too. Wow, how peculiar...

In May 2014, Heathyr said:

...We both remember berestein bears rather than berenstain,

In June 2014, Louis asked:

Does anyone remember the Berenstein Bears? I do. Although somewhere along the line the name has changed to the Berenstain Bears. No record of "stein" which is definitely how it was when i was younger. No question about it.

Matt said:

I specifically remember Berenstein Bears, not Berenstain Bears. My wife didn't remember, but I did, I liked them a lot.

Mary Garcia said:

...it was always Berenstein and now it is Berenstain. My 20 year old daughter, who had ever Bear book was just as creeped out when I showed her this, she said "no Mom it was always Berenstein". I joked that at least we came from the same reality together, so I took great comfort in that.

Sandi said:

It was always Berenstein bears for me. I was a voracious reader as a child and pronounced it as either "stine" or "steen" I eventually settled with "steen". Now if it had been spelled "stain" there would have been no question of my pronunciation of that. I noticed this difference about 5 years ago and chalked it up to new editions being re-labelled. Now it seems it was NEVER called that to begin with.

Stephen Comer said:

I would like to say that I VERY CLEARLY remember "Berenstain Bears" being Berenstein Bears. I very specifically remember it being pronounced "STEIN" on the show.

aldooze said:

Another one worth mentioning is the children s books about the 'Berenstain Bears' . Every single person I have talked to swears it was spelled 'Berenstein Bears" .

LadyJEM5 said:

While my children were small my mother & I purchased the entire Berenstein Bears library collection. At no time have I ever known them to be anything other than that, however I will confirm this for my own peace of mind by digging them out of storage.

John said:

Absolutely 100%. Berenstein/stain had me spooked

KingKen6669 said:

I, too, remember pronouncing Berenstain - "Burn-steen" my entire life. The books were a big part of my childhood; my grandmother read them to me until I was much too old, and i enjoyed every second of it. I was quite surprised when I saw the thread and the claim - it's a hard thing to swallow. My first thought, naturally, was "i'm misremembering" - that wasn't enough, I tried to make some sense of it in my post here.

When did this Berenstein vs Berenstain debate begin? I can remember an event less than 5 years ago - I was referencing them in a text message to a friend, and do remember looking up the correct spelling on my phone - I remember it clearly being STEIN. However, part of me feels that i'm buying into the "crazy", and the other part of me trusts that i'm not mis-remembering.

Mina said:

I also KNOW without a shadow of a doubt, that the childrens books were the "Berenstein" Bears, not the "Berenstain" Bears. I am a readaholic, and have been since I was 4 years old. I read every single word, just as I have done with these comments! ALL the time, I was reading BERENSTEIN, and our next-door neighbor was Mr. Steinman (pronounced "STINE") so I asked my grandmother if it was pronounced Beren-STINE or Beren-STEEN. She said it was pronounced "Bern-Steen" Bears, different than Mr. Steinman's name... I would never have asked her how to pronounce it, if it had been spelled "Berenstain"!

Brian said:

Other things I remember are Berenstein...

However, like most of these memories, readers aren't in lockstep, universal agreement.

In March 2014, Steph said:

I very vividly remember The Berenstein Bears being called The Berenstain Bears.

In June 2014, DG said:

As clearly as my memory's of Billy Graham's death are, I still remember them as the BerenSTAIN Bears.

-

So, what do you remember, Beren stein or Beren stain?

Categories Posted on Books, Media - TV, Movies, Videos

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Berenstein or Berenstain Bears? - Mandela Effect

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Many people who visit the Mandela Effect website have fond memories of the Berenstein Bears books. They read them as children, or family members read them aloud. It's a cherished childhood memory. However, the books in this timestream are Berenstain Bears. A, not E, in last syllable.

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clothing sizes?
- assumed uniformity of body shapes
- etc.

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Induction Without the Uniformity Principle

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Induction Without the Uniformity Principle

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Where did we get the idea that every induction includes some uniformity principle as a presumed premise-a premise that things will continue as they have, that the unobserved were, are, or will be like the observed? The idea is not in Socrates, Aristotle, or Cicero; it is not in medieval writings, Arabic or Latin; it is not in the Scholastics or the Renaissance Humanists; it is not in Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Thomas Reid, or William Whewell. Yet many of these writers had quite sophisticated theories of induction.

It turns out you don't need a uniformity principle-or at least not the normal one-in a theory of induction. The idea that you do goes back only to the early 1800s, to a fellow named Richard Whately.

Induction, Aristotle said, is a proceeding from particulars to universal. Until Whately (and his teacher Edward Copleston), there were two ways to think about that.

The medieval Scholastic way was to think Aristotle meant particular statements and universal statements, like this:

This magnet attracts iron.
That magnet attracts iron.
The other magnet attracts iron.
Therefore, all magnets attract iron.

or, to use another Scholastic example, like this:

This animals moves its lower jaw.
That animal moves its lower jaw.
The other animal moves its lower jaw.
Therefore, all animals move the lower jaw.

The Scholastics lamented (rightly) that unless you had surveyed all magnets or all animals, the inference was not certain. (The crocodile moves its upper jaw.)

The other, and older, way to think about induction-Aristotle's way, later revived during the Scientific Revolution-was to think not of particular and universal statements but of particular things, kinds of things, and universal properties, especially defining properties. If, say, attracting iron is a defining property of magnets, then by definition all magnets attract iron. In this way of thinking, the hard part is to figure out what properties should qualify as necessary to the class.

Whately didn't like either way of thinking about induction. He proposed something like the Scholastic, but with a twist. The Scholastics said an inductive inference works (when it does) because it can be turned into a deductive syllogism, such as:

Equilateral, isosceles, and scalene triangles have angles that sum to 180°.
[All triangles are equilateral, isosceles, and scalene.]
Therefore, all triangles have angles that sum to 180°.

This has the form:

A1, A2, A3 are B.
[All Cs are A1, A2, A3.]
Therefore, all Cs are B.

Technically speaking, such an induction by complete enumeration is a "syllogism in Barbara with the minor premise suppressed"-"Barbara" because of the syllogism's form, "suppressed" because the statement "All triangles are equilateral, isosceles, and scalene" has to be added to the observations to complete the inference.

For legitimate reasons, Whately thought this syllogism made no sense. He proposed a different one, a syllogism in Barbara with the major premise suppressed. It has the form:

This is true of some.
What is true of some is true of all.
Therefore, this is true of all.

That second statement-what is true of some is true of all-is a uniformity principle: We can count on ones yet unobserved to be like and behave like those already observed. The world will keep on going as it has.

John Stuart Mill made this central to induction. He wrote, in 1843,

Every induction is a syllogism with the major premise suppressed; or (as I prefer expressing it) every induction may be thrown into the form of a syllogism, by supplying a major premise. If this be actually done, the principle which we are now considering, that of the uniformity of the course of nature, will appear as the ultimate major premise of all inductions.*

But, as Mill knew, any uniformity principle is a problem. How do you know it's true? By induction. But induction-at least the Whatelian kind-requires you to already know the principle is true. You are stuck in a question-begging chicken-and-egg problem.

You could just take the uniformity principle on faith. You could say the world is uniform and orderly because God made it that way. Many of Whately's students, such as Baden Powell, took that approach. But many scientists have preferred non-religious solutions and have tried using statistics to get around the problem.

But even those approaches have problems. It's really tough to solve this problem of induction without inserting a leap of faith somewhere. Ninety years ago, C. D. Broad called induction "the scandal of philosophy"** and, because of Whately's uniformity principle, induction remains stubbornly vexing.

Thomas Reid thought inductive certainty required that the uniformity principle be false.

There is another approach: Dump Whately's uniformity principle.

Or replace it with Thomas Reid's. Reid, writing about sixty years before Whately and still working under the influence of Aristotle and his early modern re-discoverers, was the first to say that all induction begins with the assumption that things will continue as they have. He called this not a uniformity principle but "the inductive principle." He thought we needed to recognize its importance if we want to understand how induction produces true, universal, and certain knowledge. But he also thought the principle was untrue.

Huh? You need to assume the principle is true, but it's not, and somehow this gets you to inductive certainty?

Think, Reid said, of how a child learns. At first, the child assumes, for example, that when people speak, they tell the truth. The child doesn't really think of it that way. It's just that the child doesn't yet have the concept of "lying." Only by first assuming, implicitly, that people never lie can the child come to learn that some do.

It's like that with uniformity. The child, like a dog running to a dinner bell, assumes things will be as they were. Food of a certain color, say, tastes bad a few times, and the child expects the next serving will too.

But soon the child learns the difference between truth and make-believe-and the difference between staying the same and changing. The child learns that you can't rely on some global uniformity principle. Reid thought this was a crucial discovery. The realization that some things stay the same and some don't is what, he thought, makes induction possible and necessary.

The whole project of mature abstract thought is to identify similarities and differences, uniformities and changes, and to classify accordingly. And that-to Aristotle and followers such as Bacon and Whewell-is what induction is.

For them, classification, and therefore induction, comes before uniformity, not the other way around. It's not that you must presume uniformity in order to classify. It's that you classify to find uniformities. For Whately, uniformity is primary. For Aristotle's followers, classification is primary.

For them, you don't need a uniformity principle to obtain inductive knowledge, even certain inductive knowledge. You just need the ability to identify similarities and differences, the ability to classify well, and-if you want certainty-the ability to obtain essentialized definitions.

Aristotle, Bacon, and Whewell wrote guidelines on how to perform inductive classifications. If you have good guidelines and follow them, you can be certain that someone absolutely cannot contract cholera unless exposed to the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, certain that all men are mortal, certain that the angles of all planar triangles sum to 180°, and certain that 2+3=5. And you don't need any unjustifiable uniformity principle to do so.

For more on exactly how, see Analytic Statements and Organic Concepts and Key to Induction: Distinguish General and Universal.

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Induction Without the Uniformity Principle * John P. McCaskey

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Where did we get the idea that every induction includes some uniformity principle as a presumed premise-a premise that things will continue as they have, that the unobserved were, are, or will be like the observed?

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- mandela effect
- language barriers/translation
- theories

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- intuition
- reason
- language
- memory
- faith

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- numbers
- theories
- symbols

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- anatomy
- earth
- hospitals
- etc.

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Math

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Natural Sciece

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To what extent does knowledge exist?

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At what point does something become "known"?

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Is there knowledge that exists that is unknown due to singularity?

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More notes for 13 January

Two questions

In 1.3.6.4, we are told that there are two possible explanations of how we make particular causal inferences: either "we are determined by reason to make the transition, or by a certain association and relation of perceptions." ("the transition" is from an impression to a forceful idea [a belief] in the impression's cause or one of its effects.)

Then we are told that "if reason determined us, it would proceed upon that principle, that instances, of which we have had no experience, must resemble those of which we have had experience, and that the course of nature continues always uniformly the same. " I have been calling this the Uniformity Principle.

In order to discover whether this is so, we are told to "consider all the arguments upon which such a proposition may be supposed to be founded." The two kinds of arguments are demonstrations and probabilistic arguments and, of course, both fail to found the Uniformity Principle.

Here is a question raised by Will and Aidan today: why wouldn't it be enough that we believe the Uniformity Principle? After all, the Uniformity Principle holds that the things we have not experienced must resemble those we have experienced and that nature continues always uniformly the same. Suppose I had experience of As constantly followed by Bs, an impression of an A, and that I believed that things must continue as they had in the past. Wouldn't I be able to conclude that B would follow by comparing my ideas?

I had said that we do not, in fact, use the Uniformity Principle in drawing causal inferences. But Will asked why that is so obvious. Couldn't it be the case that we tacitly believe the Uniformity Principle without consciously thinking of it?

So here's what we have.

Question A

Why must we have a founding argument for the Uniformity Principle; wouldn't belief in the Uniformity Principle be enough to explain why we make causal inferences using reason?

Question B

Why must belief in the Uniformity Principle be explicit, conscious belief; why can't it be tacit, unconscious belief?

I will start with Question B; really, you should just pop open your book to pp. 72-3 (1.3.8.13-14); that's what the big quotations are from.

Question B

The second paragraph (1.3.8.14) claims that we tacitly believe the Uniformity Principle and that we have "many millions" of experiments to confirm it. That seems to mean that the answer to Question B is: we can tacitly believe the Uniformity Principle and, in fact, we do tacitly believe the Uniformity Principle.

The first paragraph (1.3.8.13) claims that we often make causal inferences without explicitly thinking of the Uniformity Principle. And it claims that this shows that we do not use reason to make our causal inferences. That seems to mean that we cannot extend the affirmative answer to question B to save the reason explanation of causal inferences: the reason explanation of causal inferences works only if our knowledge and use of the Uniformity Principle is explicit.

It will here be worth our observation, that the past experience, on which all our judgments concerning cause and effect depend, may operate on our mind in such an insensible manner as never to be taken notice of, and may even in some measure be unknown to us. A person, who stops short in his journey upon meeting a river in his way, foresees the consequences of his proceeding forward; and his knowledge of these consequences is conveyed to him by past experience, which informs him of such certain conjunctions of causes and effects. But can we think, that on this occasion he reflects on any past experience, and calls to remembrance instances that he has seen or heard of, in order to discover the effects of water on animal bodies? No, surely; this is not the method, in which he proceeds in his reasoning. The idea of sinking is so closely connected with that of water, and the idea of suffocating with that of sinking, that the mind makes the transition without the assistance of the memory. The custom operates before we have time for reflection. The objects seem so inseparable, that we interpose not a moment's delay in passing from the one to the other. But as this transition proceeds from experience, and not from any primary connexion betwixt the ideas, we must necessarily acknowledge, that experience may produce a belief and a judgment of causes and effects by a secret operation, and without being once thought of. This removes all pretext, if there yet remains any, for asserting that the mind is convinced by reasoning of that principle, that instances of which we have no experience, must necessarily resemble those of which we have. For we here find, that the understanding or imagination can draw inferences from past experience, without reflecting on it; much more without forming any principle concerning it, or reasoning upon that principle.

In general we may observe, that in all the most established and uniform conjunctions of causes and effects, such as those of gravity, impulse, solidity, etc., the mind never carries its view expressly to consider any past experience: though in other associations of objects, which are more rare and unusual, it may assist the custom and transition of ideas by this reflection. Nay, we find in some cases, that the reflection produces the belief without the custom; or, more properly speaking, that the reflection produces the custom in an oblique and artificial manner. I explain myself. It is certain, that not only in philosophy, but even in common life, we may attain the knowledge of a particular cause merely by one experiment, provided it be made with judgment, and after a careful removal of all foreign and superfluous circumstances. Now, as after one experiment of this kind, the mind, upon the appearance either of the cause or the effect, can draw an inference concerning the existence of its correlative, and as a habit can never be acquired merely by one instance, it may be thought that belief cannot in this case be esteemed the effect of custom. But this difficulty will vanish, if we consider, that, though we are here supposed to have had only one experiment of a particular effect, yet we have many millions to convince us of this principle, that like objects, placed in like circumstances, will always produce like effects; and as this principle has established itself by a sufficient custom, it bestows an evidence and firmness on any opinion to which it can be applied. The connexion of the ideas is not habitual after one experiment; but this connexion is comprehended under another principle that is habitual; which brings us back to our hypothesis. In all cases we transfer our experience to instances of which we have no experience, either expressly or tacitly, either directly or indirectly.

Question A

But why must we found the Uniformity Principle, that is, why do we have to give arguments in support of it? Why isn't it enough that we believe in the Uniformity Principle, as the second paragraph says we do, no matter why we believe in it? After all, we don't ask why we believe our impressions, we don't demand arguments showing that having an impression of an A gives us certainty that there was an A before we consider drawing causal inferences from that impression.

And, if it's enough to believe in the Uniformity Principle, why must the belief be explicit?

What I think

I can think of four things to say.

First, I am unsure just what role Hume thinks the Uniformity Principle plays in our drawing causal inferences. The first paragraph suggests we don't use it at all in many cases, the second paragraph suggests we use it quite a lot, albeit tacitly.

Strictly speaking, those are compatible claims. But they fit together oddly.

Second, either way, there appears to be an asymmetry between the association explanation and the reason explanation. Hume held that the reason explanation has to involve the conscious invocation of the Uniformity Principle when we make causal inferences. But he does not seem to have held that the same is true of the association explanation: see the second paragraph (1.3.8.14).

Is this sort of asymmetry explicitly acknowledged anywhere? I don't know.

Third, it's possible that he thought that our causal inferences could be the products of reason only if two things are true: (a) we use the Uniformity Principle in making them and (b) we are certain of the truth of the Uniformity Principle itself.

I am unsure about this. Looking carefully at 1.3.6, I don't see an assertion of (b). Instead, both demonstrative and probabilistic arguments are treated as possible foundations for the Uniformity Principle. On the other hand, he seems to say that there is a pretty good probabilistic argument for the Uniformity Principle in 1.3.14: millions of experiments confirm it. If that isn't enough, perhaps it's because he required certainty, as in (b). If so, he did not explain why he found (b) to be an obvious requirement. Perhaps it has something to do with obtaining a certain result: granted the Uniformity Principle is about how things must be, but if we are not certain that it is true, we cannot be certain about how things must be and so we cannot make certain inferences based on what the Uniformity Principle says must happen. That's just a guess on my part, though.

Fourth, all of this may well be more evidence that Hume did not really think carefully about the reason account as a possible explanation of how we make causal inferences. In 1.3.6, he may have been more interested in discussing the question of our justification for drawing causal inferences than in the explanation of how we do so. Again, if he were interested in explanations, it's hard to see why belief in the Uniformity Principle, tacit or explicit, would not do the trick.

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More notes for 13 January In 1.3.6.4, we are told that there are two possible explanations of how we make particular causal inferences: either "we are determined by reason to make the transition, or by a certain association and relation of perceptions."

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Is anything truly known?

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"without the assumption of the existence of uniformities there can be no knowledge"

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"without the assumption of the existence of uniformities there can be no knowledge"