Words as Hidden Inferences

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Suppose I find a barrel, sealed at the top, but with a hole large enough for a hand. I reach in and feel a small, curved object. I pull the object out, and it’s blue—a bluish egg. Next I reach in and feel something hard and flat, with edges—which, when I extract it, proves to be a red cube. I pull out 11 eggs and 8 cubes, and every egg is blue, and every cube is red. Now I reach in and I feel another egg-shaped object. Before I pull it out and look, I have to guess: What will it look like? The evidence doesn’t prove that every egg in the barrel is blue and every cube is red. The evidence doesn’t even argue this all that strongly: 19 is not a large sample size. Nonetheless, I’ll guess that this egg-shaped object is blue—or as a runner-up guess, red. If I guess anything else, there’s as many possibilities as distinguishable colors—and for that matter, who says the egg has to be a single shade? Maybe it has a picture of a horse painted on. So I say “blue,” with a dutiful patina of humilit

Words as Hidden Inferences Source Markdown · Talk Home About Search Contents Words as Hidden Inferences ❦ Suppose I find a barrel, sealed at the top, but with a hole large enough for a hand. I reach in and feel a small, curved object. I pull the object out, and it’s blue—a bluish egg. Next I reach in and feel something hard and flat, with edges—which, when I extract it, proves to be a red cube. I pull out 11 eggs and 8 cubes, and every egg is blue, and every cube is red. Now I reach in and I feel another egg-shaped object. Before I pull it out and look, I have to guess: What will it look like?

Words as Hidden Inferences

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