humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Apr 12, 3:22 pm, Mark N wrote:

> The evidence that cows can't jump over the moon does not consist of the
> fact that no one has yet seen a cow jump over the moon. And I'm going to
> go out on a limb here and conjecture that Fred's basis for certainty
> (Fred's sense) about this is not constituted by the absence of observed
> exceptions...

> It's not just that no exception has been observed so far. It's that we
> have an understanding of *why* there never have been, and never will be,
> any exceptions.

Exactly - so your are safe on your limb.

Or, as I have often asked in regard to this question, such as when we
get Bob's algorithm about universal laws being impossible because they
require an infinite number of instances, "Do we have to examine every
cow on the planet before concluding that none of them can jump over
the moon".

Fred Weiss