Hume's Indian and the Ice

David Hume brought up an interesting point in his discussions about miracles by offering the following story (that I'll paraphrase in my own words).


Dhara was born and lived her whole life in southern India. Her cousin who had been traveling for a year returned today, telling of his wonderful adventures from up north near the boarder of her country. He told stories of vast mountain ranges and his travels up the mountains and down in the valleys and into strange lands. He told of finding dragon bones in the rocks, and of finding a dragon nest in a mountain cave, but one of the most outlandish things he told about was that of solid water. He said that big flakes of white water fell out of the sky like rain, but slower, and he told of a hard and very cold substance that turned into water in ones hands. He said that there wasn't an in-between state where the water becomes thick, but rather it turned from a solid directly into liquid water. Dhara could perhaps believe in dragons. After all, she had seen big lizards before, so why couldn't there be even bigger lizards, but SOLID WATER!, Who could believe such a thing!



Dhara chose to not believe in what we call ice. Should she have believed or did she make the correct decision?

Dhara made the correct decision to not believe in the existence of ice.
How can that be, you might ask, since "ice exists" is true?

Because we are asked to evaluate Dhara's thinking, not whether or not ice exists or whether she believes what ends up being true.

She made the correct decision regarding both "dragons" and ice. She brought her prior knowledge to both problems. Since she knew of big lizards, she saw no reason to doubt the possibility of even BIGGER lizards. In fact though, her cousin may have been making it all up, but we today know of the prior existence of big lizards and dinosaurs and certainly of ice.

However, Dhara had no prior knowledge she could bring to the table considering the possibility of frozen water. It wasn't simply a matter of probability, but one of POSSIBILITY. Dhara doesn't know that frozen water is even POSSIBLE. From Dhara's perspective, "big lizards" is a matter of PROBABILITY, whereas "solid water" is a matter of POSSIBILITY.

Should we say that, as far as ice is concerned, Dhara is an agnostic, (not-knowing)?
Perhaps. It's important to keep in mind though that believe/not-believe is a different consideration than whether one knows or not (even though belief and knowledge are related).

But, even if she is agnostic about ice, this doesn't mean that she should presume that ice is POSSIBLE at all, but rather that she doesn't know that it is possible or impossible. In fact SHE SHOULD NOT PRESUME THAT ICE IS POSSIBLE. She has no legitimate reason to, since her cousin is not beyond telling a yarn or two.

We should also keep in mind that if ...

'A' = believe in the existence of ice...

...this does not means that

'~A' = believe that ice does not exist.

In fact, '~A' ("not-A") = not possessing a belief in the existence of ice, which includes belief that ice is impossible as well as not taking any belief position at all. In fact, Dhara should not take the position that ice is impossible unless she has 'a-priori' (or a "definitive") reason to think that the existience of ice is impossible. However, simply refraining from believing is the correct justifiable position for Dhara to take.

Dhara can be called an a-ice-ist in exactly the same sense that I call myself an atheist.