
Originally Posted by
chbrooking
I have an illustration of the principle in the OP that may help. It really only applies to the inductive path to knowledge, but it should get you started. Hope it helps:
Imagine you have never seen a deck of cards.
I turn up a 2 of clubs. What do you assume the next card will be? You can only assume that it is a 2 of clubs, since that's all that you have experienced.
Now I turn up a 3 of clubs, then a 4 of clubs. Now you may be smart enough to predict a 5 of clubs, but you certainly cannot think that it will be anything other than a 2,3,4 or 5 of clubs, since that's all you've experienced. Sure enough, it's a 5 of clubs, then a 6. Now you move from theory to law. You are absolutely certain that the next card will be a 7 of clubs.
But this time it's a spade, a 7 of spades! What you 'know' must be adjusted based on the new information. What happens when a diamond is introduced, or a face card?
Until you've seen every card in the deck you don't know if they are all unique, and you don't know what the possibilities are. You have to know everything to know anything. And that's in a very closed system (only 52 cards!!!!). What happens in the much wider world of science? Any new datum will throw off your entire base of knowledge, and you cannot know what new data may occur unless you've experienced every possibility.
Does that help?
Another illustration will be required for dealing with deduction, but I'm still working on coming up with that.
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