All types of Reasoning in detail!
Reasoning topic is very important to understand and it also acts as a base for some AI(Artificial Intelligence) applications. It is a part of aptitude as well as AI domain.
Reasoning in general is said to be the ability of anyone to percept the situation and act accordingly, either based on its knowledge or common-sense.
Basically, there are 3 parameters for reasoning, and they are:
- Rule
- Cause
- Effect
Inductive Reasoning:
It refers to the formation of rules, when we have cause and its effect. It can also be referred to providing a conclusion to a statement generally, after having some specific observations. For example, consider these two statements:
- Basket contains Apples.
- Apples are Tasty.
By using inductive reasoning, we can conclude from that Basket contains tasty apples. But, this will not hold in all the situations. There might be an apple in the basket which is not tasty.
Another example, consider the statement “If john plays, john sleeps”. Here the cause is “john plays” and the effect is “John Sleeps”. Now, we can form a rule from here that “whenever John plays, he Sleeps”. But, this will not hold all of the situations, because it might be possible that John has been doing another work and then he sleeps, or it is also possible that John is lazy.
So, this is also a drawback of inductive reasoning that it is always not true.
Deductive Reasoning:
It refers to the identification of effect, when we have a rule and a cause. It can also be referred to providing a specific statement when we have general statement. For example, consider these two statements:
- Basket contains Apples.
- All Apples are Tasty.
By using deductive reasoning, we can conclude from here that Basket contains tasty apples. This time our conclusion holds in every situation. There can not be any situation now in which our statement concluded (the effect we recognise) will fail.
Another example, consider the statement “John only likes eating Apples”. Here the cause is “John is eating Apple” and the rule is “John only likes eating Apples”. Now, we can easily come to the effect that “John will feel Happy/Good”, because as John likes eating apples only, and he is eating the same. So, he will feel happy.
Deductive reasoning has this advantage that it never fails in any situation, or it is valid for each and every situation.
Abductive Reasoning:
It refers to the identification of cause from a rule and effect. It can also be referred to providing a cause of the rule when we have the effect and rule.
For example, consider the rule “John is studying because he has to pass in exam”. Here , the effect is John is studying. From the rule, we can easily conclude the cause, which is “John has to pass in exam”. But, it also do not hold in every situation. There might be a case John started liking some subject and gained interest in it, due to this John will study.
So, abductive reasoning has also same disadvantage as inductive reasoning has, i.e. not true in every situation.
Combination of all the above 3 reasoning:
We can see the best example of combination in Data Science. For Example, we have data, we use abductive reasoning to find out the cause of the data, or to give explanation of data. Then, we use inductive reasoning for mapping inside data or generating some rules inside data. At last we use deductive reasoning for prediction.
Monotonic Reasoning:
This reasoning refers to the part of reasoning in which a facts or information will not change in any condition/circumstance, even if you add millions of new records in the data. We can consider them universal truths.
For example, if we have 2 + 3 = 5, then it will not change anyhow, even after addition of many other records. Another example, “Gravity always pulls object towards itself”, or “Sun rises through East and sets in West”. These conclusions will never change, no matter how many additional information is being given more or added to the database.
Non-Monotonic Reasoning:
This reasoning refers to the part of reasoning in which information may change in some condition, or after adding some additional information, previously added facts can be changed.
For Example, consider the following statements:
- John loves Ice-Cream and Chocolates.
- John hates nuts and cannot eat them in any condition.
- “Temptations” is a chocolate.
So, till here, if we apply reasoning, we can deduce that John loves Temptations.
But, now if I add one more statement, that is “Temptations contains fruits and nuts”, so, now our previously deduced conclusion doesn’t hold here. So, as our conclusion changed with addition of more information, that is why it belongs to the category of Non-Monotonic reasoning.
Default Reasoning:
It is a specific type of the non-monotonic reasoning, in which we have to do very simple things, that is first of all we have to get a statement “A” which we believes to be true, then after that we have to find any information/statement “B” which we can assume to be true, then we have to conclude another statement “C” from that.
For Example, consider the following statements:
Statement “A” -> “Deepak is a boy who thinks he is facing problems and hard-luck in life”.
Statement “B” -> “Deepak had a very bad exam”.
From here we can conclude statement “C” that -> “Deepak is really facing hard-luck in life.”.
But, as it is a type of non-monotonic reasoning, addition of some additional information can make this fact statement “C” false. For example, if we consider a statement that “Deepak is performing very well and he got scholarship”, this will completely change the facts we deduced.
Common-Sense Reasoning
It refers to the ability of anyone to percept a particular situation and take decision according to it’s experience. This reasoning does not depend on the logics/facts, it is purely based on the common sense, and in turn common sense is the knowledge gained from the experience, which signifies that common-sense reasoning is directly related to the experience of the individual.
For Example:
- If someone slit it’s neck, then it will die.
- If someone dives into a river without having the ability to swim, then it will drown.
- If someone has the mathematical logic, then it will be able to solve mathematical problems.
This is all I have for the explanation of the concepts. I hope you guys liked it and understood well.
