chaz720.net - journal

November 07, 2001

Hey ho, let's go. Hey ho, let's go. They're forming in straight line. They're going through a tight wind. The kids are losing their minds The Blitzkrieg Bop. They're piling in the back seat. They're generating steam heat. Pulsating to the back beats. The Blitzkrieg Bop. Hey ho, let's go. Shoot'em in the back now. What they want, I don't know. They're all reved up and ready to go. They're forming in straight line. They're going through a tight wind. The kids are losing their minds. The Blitzkrieg Bop. They're piling in the back seat. They're generating steam heat. Pulsating to the back beats. The Blitzkrieg Bop. Hey ho, let's go. Shoot'em in the back now. What they want, I don't know. They're all reved up and ready to go. They're forming in straight line. They're going through a tight wind. The kids are losing their minds. The Blitzkrieg Bop. They're piling in the back seat. They're generating steam heat. Pulsating to the back beats. The Blitzkrieg Bop. Hey ho, let's go Hey ho, let's go.

yep, it's that song from Tony Hawk III

Welcome to November, I hope everyone reading is still alive after the long haul through October. If not well then you have my condolences. It happens every semester and you agknowledge it at the time but never before hand, it is drawing to a close and you just now realize that all that crap you have been writing in your notebook when you go to class (which everyone in college does religiously) is actually going to be on a test sometime in the immediate present. And they might actually expect you to know some of it. But no really I kid, this semester has flown by but it hasn't been because I was sleeping the whole time, no, it's been because it was pretty easy going. Not trivial really, but easy going. No classes presented the kind of workload or material that lended itself to piling up so try as I might procrastination was futile.

Next semester might be a little different though as I hear I'm taking one of the hardest classes that the ECE department has to offer and every ece major has to take, and that is ece210 (analog circuits). Although I read the course description and it sounds like the stuff you learn about is interesting and the applications are comprehendible enough to the point where the courseload is justified. Hopefully it will be something like ece290 for me. Where although I admit it was a difficult class and there was quite a bit of work what with web homework, written homework, and labs, what we learned was cool enough to feel like I wasn't getting screwed over by the people who pull the strings on the graduation requirements. Well altogether I'm taking the following

ECE 210 - yup, analog circuits, fun stuff
ECE 313 - this is an engineering probability class, which is essentially the math behind trying to figure out if the piece of crap you just made is going to work or not, not really sure why I'm taking this and not the STAT equivilant, I just like taking an extra 300 level ECE class to make myself sound more intellegent than I actually am
PHYSC 113/114 - for some reason they split this class into two courses, so that when signed up for together they make one class that is roughly equivilant to one of the other two big physics courses (111 and 112). I guess this is one of those sure fire signs that what you are going to be taking is very specific to freaks like you that for some reason want to learn about it. So specific, in fact, that they split the class up into two courses so that people who only really needed the one could be shilded from the torture that is the other. I can't wait personally.
MUSIC 133 - Introduction to world music... yes, yes, I know you don't have to tell me. But it was a non-western and I need a non-western
CS 173 - this is more of an afterthought and I haven't signed up for it yet but I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea if I want to take some more CS later on I'm going to need this class and there is really no sense in wasting a semester of CS to take a 2 hour class. So I figure tacking it on here shouldn't be so bad. Judging by the amount of work the require Hans to put into it, I don't think it's going to be some straw that breaks the camel's back. Listen to me bitch about possibly bumping my schedule up to a whopping 16 hours...

Well I did it this semester, and I figured I'd do it again next semester, and that is (for those of you who don't believe in clicking links) make a table so you can see when my classes are. This is more for my parents so they know when they can best get a hold of me, and also for me because I always manage to lose my schedule that I draw out and rather than decypher it in the retarded format that UofI gives it to me in I'd like to just go to my site and print it out. Since I made them both semesters this year I figure for continuity's sake I'd go make last year's schedules in the same format. And in making the fall 2000 schedule it took me about 5 minutes to piece together just when all my classes were and plop them into my little table. But for some reason when I first tried to remember my schedule for last semester I drew a complete blank. Sure I could remember what classes I had, but I guess my schedule for last semester was just put together so retardedly that upon my attempt to reconstruct it I was just completely lost. I mean for god sake's, look at my tuesdays and fridays as compared to mondays and wednesdays. What the hell was I thinking?

I posted it on my front page but it was probably lost to some of you somewhere in the ongoing xBox / GameCube / Playstation 2 debate, I took a drawing I made about a week or so ago of Lain, brought it into photoshop, and came up with this color version. I really learned quite a bit about photoshop in making it, and I have Dhabih Eng to thank for that. Please do visit his site he's got a lot of awesome drawings there and a real simple tutorial on how he creates his images with seemingly more patience than artistic talent (both of which he seems to have in spades) and if you like the lain image that I made in photoshop, I'll have you know that took about 45 minutes to make from my original drawing. This whole thing is making me really want to buy a Wacom drawing tablet, so that I can draw directly onto the tablet and have the image appear in photoshop. And then obviously you can use it for things like the dodge and burn tools which are key in shading areas of color to provide depth. The only problem is that if you are going to buy one that is big enough and does what you want, then you are also going to spend about 300 bucks in the process. And we'll see how much my artisitic ego is willing to suffer for the sake of 300 bucks.

This weekend Hans took a train down to Louisiana, and when he came back up he arrived here in Champaign around 8-8:30 monday morning, and he brought with him the remains of a dozen Krispe Kreme doughnuts. Well, he decided to take a little nap after his trip. I was waking up for class right around then and saw the doughnuts and that he had a bunch of chocolate sprinkled ones, so I figured he wouldn't miss one. So I get to class and I'm sitting there for about 10 minutes, and I get a little growl in my stomach. After about 15 minutes I just picked up my stuff and walked out of class right then and there. And in my walking home I felt my skin turn pale, and I just kept saying to myself, it's only a few blocks, it's only a few blocks. But that wasn't working so I started trying to notice little things around me, like the beautiful job the people did trimming the hedges outside the Henrey Admin building, and tried to count leaves on the sidewalk, anything to keep my mind occupied while I walked briskly back home. Well anyway I got home and was sick for about 2 hours (I'll spare you the details) and then I laid cold and shivering in my bed for a couple more hours before getting up and going on with things. Later I stopped by McKinley and the gave me the once over and said it was probably just a bad reaction with the doughnut and that there was no signs that I was dying or anything. Well I was kind enough to tell the others and the other doughnuts were desposed of (it's sad to see them go like that, I know, but at that point, it was personal)

November 14, 2001

Weeee!

A number of things floating around concerning where to live next year. At the moment we have a number of things we could do...

Live here again Advantages: we have the lease set up already so it's a sure thing if we want it with zero effort, it's a really nice place to live with prime location, furnished, we are already moved in so next year we don't have to reactivate utilities or move our stuff. Disadvantages: Kinda pricey, The management handle things very poorly and they don't seem to have tenents on their mind at all, they are installing video cameras in the courtyard to try to keep activity in the courtyard to nothing more than walking around, this means no basketball and they don't even want us to play catch with a football.

Join Alpha Chi Rho Advantages: it's a frat that is getting back together again after being gone for around 10 years or so, and there would be a number of people I know that want to join it right at the get go and be founding members or the new chapter, They already have a house, it's cheaper than here and they have a cook, includes parking. It would come with the added benefits of being in a frat without the annyoing pledging part. Disadvantages: this may fall apart before it even gets started due to complictations involved in getting the house back from the people who are currently renting it. So it's a tough basket to put my eggs in.

Lease a house with some people out in urbana again parking included, divides out to be cheaper, house means less worry about annoying management. Disadvantages: have to live out in urbana (sticks finger in mouth), a lot of the houses are pretty beat up, unfurnished.

So right now staying here appears to be the current choice unless the frat things starts ramping up soon, than that will be very attractive. And there are also other apartments around here under different management than our current place with similarly laid out rooms and still decent location for a little less, so we have that option too. At this point you are probably wondering why I would leave this place since I seem to like it so much and now it dawned on me that I haven't mentioned anything about my little chat with jsm management the other day and perhaps I should say something about this

So as you may have read a while ago we built a basketball hoop that attatched to the railing of the second floor so that we could play basketball in our courtyard, observe if you will Well anyway we got a letter on Friday saying take it down by Monday or else they'd evict us. (I wonder if they noticed when they put the letter up that there was no basketball hoop anywhere) So, in the spirit of bettering myself, I brought the letter over to the jsm office and I will give you as best an account as I can recall of the conversation I had with them:

Me: (places letter on desk) Is there anyone I could talk to about this?
Secretary: What do you want to know about it?
M: Is there anyone here in a postition to discuss it?
S: (goes and gets some other woman)
Other Woman: What do you want?
M: Well I got this letter taped to my door the other day, and I was wondering what your concerns are regarding the basketball hoop?
OW: We don't want you using it.
M: When we first put up the hoop we drew a lot of interest from the other tenents, and we even consulted your security guard about the best way to construct the hoop so that we wouldn't cause any damage. We've done our best to keep the use of it from disturbing both your office tenants downstairs, and the other people in the apartment complex. I was wondering why we should not be allowed to use the courtyard for this.
OW: Our security guard does not speak for us.
M: Then any references to "prior warnings" in the letter you sent us are completely wrong, because this would be the first we've heard anything from you about it.
OW: Well then consider the letter your first warning but the terms still stand. We didn't intend for the courtyard to be used as a gym.
M: I'm sure you didn't intend for the courtyard to be used for a dumpster either, however garbage still gets thrown in it.
OW: We deal with those people in turn.
M: Actually, you tried to bill everyone $50 when a few people made a mess, I doubt anyone responsible got a threat of eviction posted on their door.
OW: Still, our common area was not meant to be used for sports.
M: What is it to be used for?
OW: walking.
M: And we aren't allowed to walk... dribbling a basketball.
OW: no.
M: I fail to see the big difference if we don't bother anyone, and tenants come out to join in and have fun, particularly if it causes no physical harm to the property. It might even raise interest in the apartments.
OW: You do realize we don't actually need a reason to tell you no.
M: I was really hoping you'd be able to give me one.
OW: It's our property and we'll do whatever we feel like with it.
M: So what your saying is, you're unwilling to give me any rational explaination as to whyyou don't want us playing basketball.
OW: Yes.
M: Well then trying to talk to you people is clearly a waste of time.

I generally don't like the way the people there treat me (And other tenants) and retaining my composure the way that woman was talking to me was a task and a half. I don't consider myself a real tense person, and I try to let things slide most of the time, but there are a select few things that really get me upset, this kinda thing is one of them. Another is when towing companies carelessly beat the hell out of cars and get away with it, but don't even get me started on that. I don't know, whenever I think about the people at JSM, and some of the articles I read in the paper about them, and various things the JSM executives have been quoted as saying, all sitting on top of the fact that they drive around in pretentous work vans with the saying "friendliest management in champaign" plastered across the side of them just makes me really not want to give these people my business. But then again, maybe life is too short, and if I spend any of my time worrying about what the empty, hollow, worthless souled nothings that govern the apartment that I live in, it would be time better spent on more productive tasks like trying to staple my ear to my shoulder, or lighting squirrls on fire and throwing them in front of cars.

So for the fun news, the only thing between me and a week long of doing nothing but that which entertains me is a CS MP (which is supposed to be simple) and a linear algebra test (which we are reviewing for today, and I feel pretty comfortable about as it were)

I also bought a cellphone. It's the motorola timeport p8767 also known as, "that gray motorola flip phone with the color screen". In stores it's around $200 or so, but I was able to find a new one on ebay for around $150. And since I work for motorola I can get a pretty nice discount on the service that should make owning it not a real big financial concern.

Three cheers for Aim away messages! hip hip! horay! hip hip! horay! hip hip! horay!

November 21, 2001

We here at Shades of Gray^TM inturrupt this seemingly endless lack of updates to bring you, well, an update...

You know, of all the times I've come back for thanksgiving from college (and if my math is right, that's apporximately twice) This vacation seems the most like a vacation. It started out a little shakey with at least one night of me sitting in a corner, alone, with a party hat that "celebrate" in sparkly silver letters and a silent spinny noise maker with my head down waiting for the pain to go away, however after that first painful night, I pressed on oh yes! and here I am to tell you that since then it has been a lot of fun.

Despite my cold, and a combination of lack of humidity, and softened well water back up north that has left my face feeling like a piece of 200 grit sandpaper, I have gotten out to the gun range twice, and that was great. It's been almost two years since I've been out and it's really great to be back. I have to say the first day I was out I was feeling a bit like the local comedy relief because my timing was off, the look was all wrong, and long story short I wasn't hittin' shit. Well okay, I wasn't shooting that poorly, but it was definately subpar. But today when I came out, for some reason I was more relaxed, things seemed to click, and I was actually shooting 23-24 again, only really missing a handful all day. Oh yes, and joel was kind enough to join me, and he seems to be a bit of a natural at trap, essentially picking up the trap gun and breaking 19/25 (from the 16 yard range) I think I'll have to bring him out again when I'm back for winter break. And as far as I know I'm bringing Hans out on Sunday before we go back to school. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that when we all turn into shotgun toting maniacs, you'll all have me to thank, your welcome.

Okay, um this is where I have to make a joke about the detroit lions, not because I really care about how much they suck, but because I succumb very easily to peer pressure. Therefore I give you my top ten list:

Top ten things the Detroit Lions Are Wishing for for Christmas:

One yard
One more yard
One more yard
One more yard
One more yard
One more yard
One more yard
One more yard
One more yard
One more yard

And this would be where I would make a joke about Osama Bin Laden being in a cave for the same reason as the above joke, but in this case I think I'll spare you because my Osama-Bin-Laden-cave-joke was really awful if you can believe it.

Tomorrow I will spend first playing a little football with the gang if my health condition permits, that is to say, if I can breathe. Then I will watch the Illinois vs. Northwestern, and Ohio State vs. Michigan football games where, although Illinois beat Ohio State last week, Ohio will have my full cheering support when they take on the "Assmeats of the Big Ten" (a nickname even Hans would endorse), aka "the whores of Ann Arbor", aka Michigan. So that should provide some entertainment that will lead quite nicely into the third thing: turkey, turkey, and more turkey. I plan to eat turkey while I watch the Green Bay Packers get beaten by the loosingest team in professional sports since the current Chicago Bulls, that's right, I'm talking about the world famous Detroit Lions. I really feel like they are going to get their first win of the season, I can feel it, I really can. And who better to get it against then the Packers for a maximum diss-factor on the cheeseheads.

Well that's enough about sports for now, how about some video games... How about that battle going on between Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony eh? Everyone seems to have a favorite system, with loyalties that make the jahad over in the east look like a couple people fighting over the check at a french restaurant. I personally think that nothing is going to change with the new systems coming out. I think that Sony is going to continue to have games that envelop players and profide hours and hours of game play with graphics that might not be top of the line, but god damn it they look good anyway. I think that Nintendo is going to continue being very cartoony and very japanese about their games, and there will be a few adventure titles that catch people's eye, but the system will be facited on four people sitting together on a couch battling it out over some game for 17 hours straight. And then I think there is going to be "that other system" that people buy and end up getting relatively short doses of joy, while they can't help but notice their system seems to be forming that uh... that little layer of dust. You know that layer of dust I'm talking about... That one on your racing wheel, or that one on your plastic model of the stealth bomber...

Well I hope everyone has a good night, and good thanksgiving tomorrow, I gotta go take some 'tussin and hit the sack.

November 26, 2001

Pick me up from the bottom. Up to the top love, everyday. Pay no mind to taunts or advances, I take my chances on everyday. Left to right. Up and down, love. I push up love love, everyday. Jump in the mud. Get your hands dirty with, Love it up everyday. All you need is... All you want is... All you need is love. All you need is... What you want is... All you need is love. Everyday. Everyday. Pick me up love from the bottom. Up onto the top love, everyday. Pay no mind to taunts or advances. I�m gonna take my chances everyday. Left to right. Up and up and inside out right. Good love fight for everyday. Jump in the mud, mud. Get my hands filthy love. Give it up love. Everyday. All you need is... All you want is... All you need is love. All you need is... What you want is... All you need is love. Everyday. Everyday. What you�ve got, Lay it down on me. What you�ve got, Lay it down on me. All you need is... All you want is... All you need is love. All you need is... What you want is... All you need is love. Everyday. Everyday. Everyday.

if you haven't seen the video for that song than I recommend you find some way to, either gnutella or a brief viewing of MTV should do the trick. That was the first time I heard the song and I thought it was pretty funny.

Yikes, back at school and rarin' to go. I have but a few things that stand before finals. Formost is a Physics test this Wednesday which just kinda bared it's ugly head out of nowhere when I got back here. It's over electromagnetic wave phenomenon (polarization, propigation, refraction) as well as general EM wave properties, and since I've apparently paid little attention to this subject matter up until now I had best study a bit for it. But it's okay cause I have most of tomorrow free to take care of that. Next up is a paper in Philosophy regarding Hume and Descartes, fun stuff. I have some more reading to do before I can write that, but it's due Friday so I should be fine. And then I have a CS program due next Friday but who really cares about CS, I mean really. Oddly enough my Math class is being very tame up unto the final date which is, now, the only remaining grade to be decided. I actually feel very good about my standing and potential final performance in all my classes with the only final that may proove tricky is the physics, but even then, that can be cured with oh so joyous practice tests.

Oh, and in the middle of writing this I just got done watching the frist episode of a japanese series FLCL (pronounced in the series "furi kuri") recommended to me by, three guesses here, joel. It's from the same people that made Evangelion, but I think on this one they've uh, well they've really outdone themselves. Somewhere around the point where the main character has a giant robot grow out of his forhead, along with what appeared to be a giant severed robot arm. The two of which then procedded to battle epically until the evil arm was destroyed all because the guy was hanging out with some poor alcoholic homeless girl that had a crush on his estranged brother. Combine this with certain scenes being simply manga (comic book kinda thing) images being scrolled all over the background while people shout things at each other, and you have yourself one bonafide crack-fest of an anime series. I don't really want to watch it anymore but the first episode has left a golfball sized hole in my brain and I feel like I need to search through the rest of the series to find out what has happened to my stolen gray-matter. I don't know if I've mentioned it yet today but Joel I hate you

November 27, 2001

I want you to know he's not coming back. look into my eyes, i'm not coming back. so knives out. catch the mouse. dont look down. shove it in your mouth. if you'd been a dog, they woulda drowned you at birth. look into my eyes. it's the only way you'll know i'm telling the truth. so knives out. cook him up, squash his head. put him in the pot. I want you to know, he's not coming back. he's bloated and frozen. still there's no point letting it go to waste. so knives out, catch the mouse. squash his head. put him in the pot.

I know a while ago I made a joke associating attempting to defuse your alarm clock in the morning with an obsession towards counter-strike. But now let me tell you I haven't played counter-strike in a really long time, and I assure you I am an avid snoozer.

This morning I think it finally dawned on me the kind of random thoughts that go through my head in the morning when my alarmclock goes off. Initially it catches me by surprize and I am startled into waking. BEEP BEEP BEEP *WHACK* I very quickly swing over the arm to hit the snooze button. At this point I realize I have had a close call, and it is just a short time before the second attack, and boy is it ever going to be relentless. I regroup and consider my strategy for defense 7 minutes from now. Perhaps I will sniff out a weekness besides the snooze button which will defeat my advisary once and for all. Pull the plug? no no, that will kill the clock part of the alarm and I like being able to see what time it is. This must be a precision strike, and that means no casualties...

BEEP BEEP BEEP *WHACK* whoa, that was close... I guess I spent too much time thinking about it that time. I need to be more careful this time around. I need more time, and in the clock lies the key. No, more sleep simply isn't good enough. For I can never have enough as my class is in just 45 minutes. I must find a combination of buttons I can press, and such a combination must exist, that will allow me to freeze all time and space and sleep all day, and yet miss out on nothing. I have a magic alarm clock and I have not yet discovered how to release it's power on the world. It's a shame I don't, but there's no better time than now, because I have at least another two minutes until the alarm will go off again... or was it one...

BEEP BEEP BEEP *WHACK* my calculations were off! such careless mistakes will not go unpunished much longer. I must find a way to ration my time such that I don't get cought of guard again, I must zzzzz...

BEEP BEEP BEEP *WHACK* what the!?! Ah crap my class is in 10 minutes!!

Well today marks this things second birthday, but don't think this means ya'll will be getting cake or nothin'. I was going to do some graphical changes to make the site look a little cooler but the plan fell through when the images in flash and the images in html refused to line up properly despite much coaxing. Maybe this weekend I'll give it another shot, but it may take more work then it's really worth. Sadly I must leave this party (as exciting as I was prepared for it to get!!!) because I have a physics test tomorrow which needs some studying for... bleh... *WHACK* damnit it didn't go away.

November 30, 2001

We, as people, like to know if something is going to happen, and why particular events occur in our lives. When we are young, the consequences of an action tend to be shrouded from us, as we have never seen such an action take place. In order to draw a conclusion about what will happen following an event, we must rely on our past experiences, and as adolescence, we have few. As we grow older, and our past becomes full of various happenings, we start getting more comfortable at being able to predict these cause and effect relationships, and we make these predictions more often then we sometimes realize. Predictions of this kind, those based on repeated observations of similar occurrences, are referred to as inductive reasoning. But just how good are these predictions we make? What kinds of assumptions are taken in order to draw these everyday conclusions, and are they safe? As you can see, a number of problems emerge in even the simplest of inductive conclusions, and although they may seem very reasonable, Hume believes it is not a very rational way to think.

All inductive arguments follow a pattern similar to the following example given by Hume. First you are given a piece of bread to eat and told it will nourish you. You can see that it has a crust, and that it has a soft center. It gives off a distinct smell that you can distinguish from others, and it�s rough size and shape can all be taken in through the senses. When you do eat it, the texture and taste are recorded into memory along with the other properties, and after all is said and done, it gives you a sense of nourishment, just as promised. Given the bread a second, third, and forth time, you tend to notice a bit of a trend. Same look, same smell, same feel, and same taste, provides you with the same nourishment as the first piece of bread. Now, let�s say you are feeling hungry at some point in the future, and at the very moment it just so happens you stumble upon a croissant. First you can smell it and it smells similar to bread. You pick it up and it looks and feels something along the lines of a bread-like substance. So you figure eating it will provide you with the nourishment you were seeking. Right there you have drawn a conclusion that has absolutely nothing to do with associating the object�s physical properties to it�s ability to provide nourishment, but rather you projected the wholesome properties of bread onto the croissant simply because they appeared similar. While it may seem very casual to you, you just ingested a foreign object based on the assumption that it had similar qualities of bread, even though you have never encountered an object of it�s kind before. And this is the essence of inductive reasoning.

Hume sees a rather large hole in any conclusion reached via inductive reasoning, and although he admits that it can often be reliable and useful, he does not believe it is philosophically sound. Russell presents a good example to explain why inductive reasoning is irrational. Take a chicken whose farmer has fed it every day of its life. This may go on for years until the chicken grows to the proper mature age. And finally one day the farmer, instead of feeding it, wrings its neck, cooks it, and eats it for dinner. Through inductive reasoning the chicken was under the impression that the farmer was going to continually feed it for all eternity, and instead the chicken ended up feeding the farmer. In this case, and I don�t think the chicken would argue otherwise, he only really had to be wrong once. A rational conclusion would not have left the rather inconvenient alternative of death out on the table, however as it would appear, there was no way for the chicken to draw a rational conclusion from nothing but a bunch of happy memories of being fed. A similar course of debunking can be taken when looking at the belief that the sun will surely rise tomorrow. Yes, the sun has risen every day of our lives. Yes, as best we can gather the sun has risen every day prior to our existence. However, as reassuring as it would be to expect that the sun is going to rise tomorrow, we can�t form a rational conclusion that it will. Remember, just like the chicken, we only have to be wrong once. Hume argues that all inductive reasoning follows just as the roasted chicken and the post-apocalyptic earth, in that as many times as something has happened in the past, it is foolish to believe that means it will always happen in the future.

Now that we�ve seen a couple examples where inductive reasoning fails, let�s take a look at why it doesn�t always work out. There is a concept called �the uniformity of nature�. Briefly, it is the belief that every single thing that happens in nature, happened in accordance with some law to which there is no exceptions. The key here is to find the appropriate laws that will stand through just about anything amidst all the ones that only appear to be true. The sun rises every morning, not because it�s a law in and of itself, but because the earth spins in a predictable pattern in accordance with Newton�s laws of motion. So if something smashed into the earth causing the sun never to rise again, such an occurrence would not be in err of the laws of motion, even though it would set straight any beliefs that the sun always rises in the morning. The more specific law folds while the more general law stands. Hume would go further to say that even such a seemingly concrete thing, like the laws physics, cannot be absolutely counted upon, because they are still only valid if current trends continue. And even though we cannot conceive of a situation where they would fail, every time we make use of them we are sticking our necks out.

While it is essentially impossible to refute Hume�s claim in an absolute sense, there are a number of ways in which we can augment the concept of inductive reasoning to make his argument rather trivial. The first of which is Russell�s theory of increasing probability. This theory states, in a nutshell, that the more times you witness the occurrence of two things together that are believed to be related, the more likely it is that the relation of the two things is certain, with no bounds. In other words every time we see the sun rise in the morning, it gets that much more likely that the sun will always rise the following morning as well. As you can see, while this argument isn�t nearly as concrete as �the sun will always rise in the morning� it does escape Hume�s attack in that even if the sun doesn�t rise tomorrow, that�s not to say that it wasn�t a good place to have put your money. Another argument raised against Hume�s inductive reasoning attack lies in the consequences of a belief based on inductive reasoning being wrong. As far as the situation of the sun goes, it is our belief that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. A conclusion such as this is very reasonable, and this is primarily because of the grim consequences if the conclusion were to turn out wrong. As long as the sun keeps rising in the morning the conclusion works beautifully. If at any point the sun ceases to rise in the morning, I strongly doubt that very many people are going to wish that they had seen it coming, as prior knowledge of such an event is pretty darn useless.

However, rather predictably through inductive reasoning, these refutes of Hume�s criticism have their own problems. First we look at Russell�s theory of probability. This states that, rather than guaranteeing a relationship after so many observations, subsequent observations merely make the relationship more and more probable. This distinction makes inductive reasoning all but useless for answering scientific or philosophical questions because of the uncertainty that it lends itself to. No one really wants to know what the meaning of life probably is, nor do they want to know what is most likely the theory of relativity. The second argument has a rather obvious problem of only working in situations where a mistake is catastrophic. But with respect to casual conclusions reached with induction, it offers little recourse if the conclusion turns out to be wrong. If we were to flip a coin ten times, all ten times it was heads, and we concluded that all coin tosses result in heads, only to get tails on the next toss, our world would not be turned upside down, but this argument doesn�t hold an recourse for us. While it appears that these arguments refute Hume�s criticisms, what they actually do is redefine inductive reasoning straight out of Hume�s scope of concern. They both seem to try to define inductive reasoning as �good enough� however imperfect it may be. But whether or not it�s good enough for you is your choice. Hume chooses no, and that is perfectly valid.

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