Challenge: starting at A
, make the first letter of each
paragraph the alphabetical successor to the previous paragraph's
first letter.
All people use induction.
Before continuing, I should define my terms. Induction is the process of arriving at conclusions with incomplete information, based on trends. This is the opposite of deduction. For instance, if I claimed, I have read every book I own
and, I own David Copperfield,
you would deduce that I have read David Copperfield, based on complete information. Deduction provides a valid conclusion, given correct information. On the other hand, if I claimed, the sun has come up every day for the past million years
and, tomorrow is a day,
you could not logically deduce that the sun will rise tomorrow: you can only induce it, based on our incomplete information (and our perceived trend) about moments in which the sun rises over all eternity. (Really, we only have reliable information for a tiny fraction of eternity.) In fact, there is no way to deduce that the sun will rise tomorrow. Heck, there is not even a way to deduce that the sun rose yesterday, since schizophrenia cannot be entirely discounted as the only reason you saw yesterday's sunrise.
Clearly, deduction alone leads to a very restricted world (the world of mathematics alone). Something else is necessary, and we use induction. Using induction, I can claim something fun: all people use induction.
Is my claim true? I know I use induction. And you, reading this, agree that you use induction. So there seems little reason to suppose that other people do not use induction. QED. Using this type of logic in school would lead to instant failure; ignoring this type of logic in real life would be insane.
Data in this world is hard to come by. Each of us represents one seven-billionth of humanity: that is, one seven-billionth of its mental ability, one seven-billionth of its experiences, and one seven-billionth of its ideas. We survive by making assumptions about each other and the world around us. Induction is the cement which fills the cracks (chasms?) in our knowledge.
Expatriates in particular are fascinating because of what we induce away from home. On the one hand, we have far less raw data than locals. On the other hand, we have far more perspective. A local person has a routine which makes the world slide into place. To an expatriate, many aspects of a local person's routine are foreign, and so the expatriate will think about why things are the way they are. And then, through the miracle of induction, the expatriate will make wild claims.
For instance, I heave heard it said that Tanzania is better-off than its neighbours; I have heard Uganda is better-off; I have heard all volunteers should leave Africa alone; I have heard Africa would fall apart if we did; I have heard every Tanzanian owns a cell phone; I have heard Dar es Salaam is safe; I have heard Kampala is safer; I have heard Dar es Salaam is dangerous; I have heard Kampala is even more so; I have heard life is cheap in Africa; I have heard there is something magical about life in Africa that we do not have in the West (some day I will devote an entry to this worthy topic); and so on.
Generalizing all the above claims, I can induce that nobody knows anything. Even Tanzanians know little about their own country, I induce. After all, I cannot even give a straight answer about Canada. Tanzanians often ask me the name of my tribe in Canada. My gut reaction is to respond that we have no tribes. I have no tribe; none of my friends or family have a tribe; therefore, I induce, there are no tribes in Canada. I spent days spreading this misinformation before I remembered that I was completely wrong.
I claim induction can be inaccurate. Do not trust me, though. Watch my logic for errors: I have a habit of jumping to conclusions.