paradox

I don't agree, as I've posted before.

What is your reasoning considering a finite universe? If it is that finding a non-black, non-crow object only increases the probability of the law being true by a tiny, insubstantial amount, then I agree that this is true. But the question was if it would increase it at all, without rounding down to zero.

But why crows?

Originally posted by ark13
What is your reasoning considering a finite universe? If it is that finding a non-black, non-crow object only increases the probability of the law being true by a tiny, insubstantial amount, then I agree that this is true. But the question was if it would increase it at all, without rounding down to zero.

Due to the nature of sampling, as I've tried to explain in a previous post.

The number of non-black objects are so disproportionate towards the number of crows, that no sampling with non-black objects could be effective. In a case like this only samples of crows provide evidence.

The whole point made by this example is that logically equivalent statements are not equally easy to verify, prove or in a larger sense work with. That is the reason, for example, why some Theorems are more easily proven by reformulating them in an equivalent (in logical sense) form.
Logical equivalence does not mean equivalence in all respects.

I think it's all very logical. And forget about the crows.

I myself don't spend any time using drugs. To prove it I spend time drinking beer.

It's a line I'm going to use very soon. "My GF: "why are you drinking beer that often??" well just to prove I'm not using drugs hun! lol

Perhaps we could also examine some items from the set of all black objects, every black object that turns out not to be a crow makes it more unlikely that we will manage to find all the crows in the remaining black objects - therefore each black non-crow makes it more likely that the statement is false.

i'm guessing that it is relatively easy to state laws like "All crows are black" to prove them is a different matter.
as long as there is a single crow out there not seen(and it is impossible to account for all the crows) there is a possibility that the particular crow is white or green. even if it is a different shade of black it contradicts the law

of course, in this particular law crows are genetically black but in general there is no way to definetely prove laws like "All...are..."

Originally posted by iamatiger
Perhaps we could also examine some items from the set of all black objects, every black object that turns out not to be a crow makes it more unlikely that we will manage to find all the crows in the remaining black objects - therefore each black non-crow makes it more likely that the statement is false.

I disagree with this. There's no such thing as a representative sample of black objects or of non-black objects since they are too diverse and vast in numbers.

If this is true (and that is my opinion), any sample of black objects or non-black objects will not be representative and therefore won't make anything more or less likely.