3 ms·

So is this survivorship bias or something else? I don't understand your point. I have a white wall in front of me. If I take a brush and red paint and paint a b

So is this survivorship bias or something else? I don't understand your point. I have a white wall in front of me. If I take a brush and red paint and paint a big red circle on the wall, are you saying that the big red circle "just happens to be there" with no relationship to the brush, red paint and my actions?

jordan_curve 6y ago
You only know that there will be a red spot on the wall based on your past experiences with the physical world. Why should we believe our experiences in the past are at all relevant to the future? We haven’t lived in the future. The laws of gravity could be totally different. All of our data about gravity is equally consistent with the theory “If I drop an apple it will fall only if it is before December 2020” as it is with our theory that the law of gravity will continue to exist in the future as it does today.
- ZeteticElench 6y ago
  "Why should we believe our experiences in the past are at all relevant to the future?" I can glibly say because it is utterly insane and silly to argue otherwise due to the immense success of science to explain how the world works and produce sophisticated technology. I could also take a Bayesian probability approach and assume some arbitrary prior 0 < p < 1 for the probability that when you apply paint to a brush and place that brush in contact with a white wall and move the brush in a circle a red circle will appear with the exact same size and the circle the brush moved in. Use the Bayesian formula to update your probability and then repeat a few thousand times. The probability will approach 1.