Validation In Deduction

Last update: 7th Aug 2023.

Disclaimer

This is an intermediate skill for more serious deductionists. If you just do deduction for fun, this shouldn’t concern you.

Definition

Validation is, by definition, proof that something is correct.

Validation in deduction means chopping off all the little branch and leave the one big one (the truth).

Why is validation important?

Deduction without validation is commonly seen in beginner deductionists. They learn about Single Step deduction, make a first observation and immediately concludes the answer.

Easily accepting the first answer will make a habit of lazy thinking and the deduction process faulty and sloppy.

In a big complex case, you can’t manage to get the data wrong from the first deduction.

How to validate a deduction

Usually, a people behavior doesn’t change, and they do a lot of activities in a set amount of time. Hence, they will leave a lot of evidence or residue of their action. You can often find more than one evidence that deduce the same thing.

Let’s take a look at a real-life example, a reddit post that I deduced today.

From the wall texture, we can deduce a developed country.

Power socket + heating system = Europe.

That was a baseline, now, the validation.

The yellow hand cream on the window was a German brand. You can’t really see it here because of the picture quality unfortunately. (1)

The receipt on the bottom left says “Tankstella” – German for gas station. (2)

Now both of this would confirm that OP lives in a country that speaks German, not specifically Germany. It also matches with previous deduction of developed country.

Triple confirmation. Usually, 2 are enough.

When to not validate

Validation every deduction will be time consuming and there will be time that you won’t find second evidence for a deduction.

Usually, you can skip validation if the deduction is really simple, or you somehow have a good understand of a subject.

Example, on the picture above, you can safely say OP is right-handed by only looking at the mouse’s position. Although you can validate with water bottle and pens, it’s not necessary.

You can also safely say OP work on a creative field with an observation of MacBook. It’s just a knowledge that tends to be right.

Overall, when you practice deducing with feedbacks, you’ll know when you don’t have to validate, though it’s always a good habit to have.

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