For my own amusement (and those of a similar persuasion) .... something reflective by Russell .... towards Turkey / "trnc"
cornucopia wrote:This is nothing more than the problem of induction which is unfathomable to many people unless it is explained very simply. One writer relates a story told by Bertrand Russell that attempts to do just that:
I prefer another tale told by Bertrand Russell, which concerns a certain farmer and his turkey. From the point of view of the reflective turkey, the farmer will always greet him in the morning with a bucket of grain. Why? Because, by simple inductive reasoning, it follows that the more often this happens, the more secure [the turkey] is in the belief that it will happen again until, one morning, the farmer appears with an axe. Now from the farmer's better informed point of view, he knows that the more often the turkey gets the grain, the less likely it is that he will survive another day. Similarly, life underwriters adopt the farmer's point of view.
We mistake frequency of an event for proof that it will continue in the future.