[Inquiry] Re: Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

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INT.  Note 18

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2.1.  The Pragmatic Approach to Inquiry (cont.)

As far as automating induction goes, we should not expect an inductive
program to make up the data for us, no matter how sophisticated it gets!
Inductive tests can provide measures of how well a theoretical construct
fits a set of data, but no fit is perfect, nor is it ever intended to be.
An inductive concept is supposed to present a simplification of a complex
reality, otherwise it would serve no function over and above just staring
at the data.  In gauging the slippage between concept and data, the degree
of tolerance acceptable in a given situation is a matter of discretionary
judgments that have to be made under the actual conditions in the field.

When it comes to automating abductive reasoning, we should observe the
historical circumstance that it is often the most "unlikely" set of
hypotheses that turn out to form the correct conceptual framework,
at least when that likelihood has been judged from the standpoint
of the previous framework.  Aside from their responsibilities to
the inquiry process, abductive hypotheses can be freely generated
in the most creative manner possible.  Breaking the mind-set of the
problem as stated and reformulating data descriptions from radically
new perspectives are just some of the allowable strategies that are
frequently required for ultimate success.

Abductive reasoning is the mode of operation which is involved in shifting
from one paradigm to another.  In order to reduce the overall tension of
uncertainty in a knowledge base, it is often necessary to restructure
our perspective on the data in radical ways, to change the channel
that parcels out information to us.  But the true value of a new
paradigm is typically not appreciated from the standpoint of the
alternative or established models, that is, not until it has had
time to reorganize the knowledge base in ways that demonstrate
clear advantages to the entire community of inquiry concerned.

The preceding survey has introduced a model of inquiry and charted a series
of limits and obstacles to the prospects of automating a support for inquiry.
We should not let ourselves be too discouraged by the acknowledgment of these
limitations and obstructions.  But we ought to recognize that these constraints
are not so much limits on the computational extension of human inquiry as they
are limits on the instrumental nature of inquiry itself, being matters of the
specific adaptations of finite creatures to an infinite world.  In effect,
they are nothing else but the familiar limits of the scientific method.
They are the limits that make it a method.

Jon Awbrey

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