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That is exactly what I mean. We try to establish what a probability of 0.5 means, i.e. that the relative frequency converges to 0.5 if the number of trails goes
by danbruc 10y ago
That is exactly what I mean. We try to establish what a probability of 0.5 means, i.e. that the relative frequency converges to 0.5 if the number of trails goes to infinity, but that is not exactly true because there is a (possibly vanishingly small) set of outcomes where the relative frequency does not converge to 0.5. This in turn forces us to state that the relative frequency only converges with high probability, but now we have used a probability in our definition of probability, i.e. we made some kind of circular argument. I just skimmed the article you linked and I am not sure if I read it before so I will read it again, but from a first glance it does not look like any definition in there is suitable to avoid the problem.
- kgwgk 10y agoThere is no circularity. You're discussing the real-world interpretation of the probability of an event in terms of long-term frequencies. The probability in the definition of convergence is a well-defined mathematical concept that has nothing to do with frequencies. Edit: thinking more about it, I agree that the passage from mathematical probability to real-world probability is not very satisfactory. But it's not really surprising, the very notion of "real-world" is troublesome.