Dealing with Induction

Given that the world is more or less uniform - the laws of physics hold at all times - how easy is it to draw a wrong conclusion about the future from the evidence of the past? Let's play a game to find out.

The game is very simple. We're going to show you a sequence of cards. There is a simple rule that governs whether cards belong to the sequence. For example, imagine the game is played with faces of coins rather than cards. The rule might be "coppers only", "heads only" or "only coins worth over 5p". It could be more complex: "Only heads of coppers or tails of silver".

You need to guess whether the card you see on screen is permitted in the sequence. To do this you will, of course, have to think inductively: you'll need to look at the evidence of the past (the cards already showing) to see what regularity they exhibit. Having worked out what this regularity is, you'll be able to calculate whether the next card fits the sequence. Easy, eh? Let's start!

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