raven paradox
Tags: episteme
Logical paradox about the scientific method:
- If a raven is black, and your hypothesis is that “ravens are black”, then every raven you see that is black supports the hypothesis
- However, the cohort of this is that “if a thing is a raven, then it is black”
- This means that non-raven non-black things support the hypothesis, which is nuts
- So inherently there is a ranking of evidence, not non-raven non-black things are weaker evidence than a black raven
- A la bayesian inference
- However, baysesian inference requires you to know the rough % of non-black non-ravens to black ravens,
- This number can be estimated, but where is it from?