item #6622

On Induction. Overly-generalized, overly-theoretical approaches merely imitate genuine theoretical analyses. If prediction is one's aim, such methodologies only seem to usefully predict; if problem-solving is one's aim, the answers offered are mere smokescreens, obscuring actualities. This is dangerous to the processes of mentation. It's popularity bemuses us; just as observing such recurrent mistakes fascinates and occupies us. Can we say that such adherence flags up basic but important problems of perception - not those associated with time, as is often thought? We can affirm that there is no due-date: the field is not one of temporality, it is one of ideology. Additionally, it can be said that differing informational assumptions do not prompt different behavioral rules. In short, it is unimportant whom one imitates; the issue is imitation itself. In laboratory experiments, we have tested counter-systems with this argument in mind - in varying conditions, over and over. We have found that certain models differ between treatments, and that the data gathered supports individuation, both in terms of the benefits of limited choice and in terms of limited perception as modus operandi. Little is convincingly unconditional, however; and individuation itself - as a method, one might say - has no greater propensity to imitate success than those methods already criticised as ineffective. All else appears imminent.

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