#75 - The Problem of Induction, Relitigated (w/ Tamler Sommers)

Increments

When Very Bad Wizards meets Very Culty Popperians. We finally decided to have a real life professional philosopher on the pod to call us out on our nonsense, and are honored to have on Tamler Sommers, from the esteemed Very Bad Wizards podcast, to argue with us about the Problem of Induction. Did Popper solve it, or does his proposed solution, like all the other attempts, "fail decisively"?

(Warning: One of the two hosts maaay have revealed their Popperian dogmatism a bit throughout this episode. Whichever host that is - they shall remain unnamed - apologizes quietly and stubbornly under their breath.)

Check out Tamler's website, his podcast (Very Bad Wizards), or follow him on twitter (@tamler).

We discuss

• What is the problem of induction?
• Whether regularities really exist in nature
• The difference between certainty and justification
• Popper's solution to the problem of induction
• If whiskey will taste like orange juice next week
• What makes a good theory?
• Why prediction is secondary to explanation for Popper
• If science and meditiation are in conflict
• The boundaries of science
  

References

• Very Bad Wizards episode on induction
• The problem of induction, by Wesley Salmon
• Hume on induction

Errata

• Vaden mentions in the episode how "Einstein's theory is better because it can explain earth's gravitational constant". He got some of the details wrong here - it's actually the inverse square law, not the gravitational constant. Listen to Edward Witten explain it much better here.

Socials

• Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani, @tamler
• Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link
• Trust in our regularity and get exclusive bonus content by becoming a patreon subscriber here. Or give us one-time cash donations to help cover our lack of cash donations here.
• Click dem like buttons on youtube

If you are a Very Bad Wizards listener, hello! We're exactly like Tamler and David, except younger. Come join the Cult of Popper over at [email protected]

Image credit: From this Aeon essay on Hume. Illustration by Petra Eriksson at Handsome Frank.

Special Guest: Tamler Sommers.

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