🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <33868@cci632.UUCP> jct@ccird3.UUCP (John Thompson) writes:
>
>I don't see a way that inductive reasoning, which by the definitions I am used
>to does not always follow rules ( i.e. the jump without sufficent data ), can
>be reduced to an algolrithm. Can anyone out there enlighten me as to where I am 
>wrong with this?

	Inductive reasoning -- and I prefer as you do the term reasoning over
thinking -- is simply taking as given the conclusion and constructing a set of
simplifications that lead you back to specific atoms. This can be dealt with
by a recursive-like process, or any alogorithm [sp?] capable of searching the 
"tree" backwards and applying deductive tests to it.
	Also... there is such a thing as an indirect mode of proof where one
ASSUMES what they wish not to prove and concludes to a contradiction, thereby
showing the original assumption to be wrong and the negation of that assumption
to be right. This sort of "weak" proof corresponds roughly to quite a few so-
called "inductive" arguments.
	[no clever end block yet, but we're working on it]