Inferences abduction

Josephson, J., and Josephson, S., eds., Abductive Inference Computation, Philosophy, Technology. Cambridge University Press, 1994. 

My astonishment at the credulity of many fellow dreamers who deny the instruction of their didactic dream illusions is exceeded only by my amazement at my even better educated colleagues, like John Mack, who collude with their patients inferences about the veracity of alien abduction. The critique offered here is based on the testimony of the subjects that Mack describes in his book, Alien Abduction. However, I believe that the illusion hypothesis will apply equally well to other cases, even those that occur outdoors in the daytime. Remember, the capacity of the brain-mind for dissociation is a natural and universal talent. 

Abduction With this kind of inference, explanations are generated. Example 8.2 demonstrates this. 

Abduction is not a legal inference. If in Example 8.2 X were, for example, a conducting polymer, then the inference will be false. Apart from this, abductive inferences are very useful. Think of a medical or instrumental diagnosis. If certain symptoms are observed, then an assumed disease or instrument state becomes plausible. 

Induction is useful, but as for abduction, does not give a legal inference. The conclusion drawn in Example 8.3 that all metals are solid is inadmissible, for example, for the metal mercury. 

Abduction is another common sense inference rule underpinning the marketplace if a seller agent S has goods available for delivery D, s/he will make them available for sale. That is ... 

The model of the inference of the best explanation is designed to give a partial account of many inductive inferences, both in science and in ordinary life. One version of the model was developed under the name abduction by Pierce [15] (early in this century and the model has been considerably developed and discussed over the last 25 years). Its governing idea is that explanatory considerations are a guide to inference that scientists infer from the available evidence to the hypothesis which would, if correct, best explain that evidence. 

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