6 ms·

It's not the discussion whether people can conceive all sorts of things. The discussion is about its relationship to reality.

kgwgk 4y ago
I’m pretty sure you can as well! If you can pick Brazil or Morocco to win $1000 in case the one you choose wins the World Cup which one do you pick? Why? Are you really indifferent between them because you cannot conceive how saying that one is more likely to win than the other could have any relationship to reality?
- ThomPete 4y ago
  Again if i cant explain who will win, I am simply guessing.
  - kgwgk 4y ago
    There is nothing in the mathematical definition of probability that prevents you from applying the formalism to “guessing”. The axiomatic definition of probability is about consistency - not about explanations. Whatever your definition of probability is it seems too restrictive. You may have another name for the “this is more likely than that” statements and the related reasoning processes essential in science, technology and survival in the world. Many people call that “probability” and sucessfully apply probability theory to reason about those things.
    - ThomPete 4y ago
      You are missing the point. There is no causal connection between what i describe the probability of X to be and the probability of X. You can say it's 50/50 I can say it's 20/80 none of that have any effect on the outcome. I can either explain the outcome or I cant and adding probability doesn't change that. Again we are not talking about ex. a deck of cards where there is a set number of cards. We are talking about open ended systems like reality.
      - kgwgk 4y ago
        You’re missing the bigger point that both 50/50 and 80/20 are valid probability assignments as far as the mathematical theory of probability is concerned. If we were talking about a deck of cards there would be no causal connection between the probability you assign to the next card in the deck and the next card in the deck. Note that for the deck of cards different people can also have different probability assignments! Maybe you saw the first 26 cards as they were dealt face up, I saw them plus the card at the bottom of the deck, someone else has just arrived and has seen only the latest card dealt. Each of us will calculate different probabilities for the next card but all of them are unrelated to reality where the next card in the deck is fixed but unknown to us. Can any of us “explain the outcome”?
        ThomPete 4y ago
        Mathematical theory has no causal effect on reality either. So no I am not missing some bigger point. I might as well make a metaphysical claim like. Thor will make x happen. It's a metaphysical claim.
        kgwgk 4y ago
        Ok, so probability doesn't exist at all for you [1] and the deck of cards discussion is just a red herring. If your argument is that probability can't exist because if can't have a causal effect on reality maybe you should try to define and use probability as it's usually done - with the understanding that 'having a causal effect on reality' has nothing to do with it. Probability can be used to say things about reality. 'Things' like 'what we know or expect'. Probability is about uncertainty. Statistical mechanics will say things like 'the average energy in that system is whatever' - this is something about reality. Particle physics will say 'the half-life of that muon is whatever'. That's physics as far as my defition of physics goes. Can physics - in your view - explain that if you put together a glass of hot water and a glass of cold ethanol you end up with a warm mixture of water and ethanol? That "causality" only exists in a probabilistic sense after all... ——- [1] You are in good company. Bruno de Finetti wrote: “My thesis, paradoxically, and a little provocatively, but nonetheless genuinely, is simply this: PROBABILITY DOES NOT EXIST The abandonment of superstitious beliefs about the existence of the Phlogiston, the Cosmic Ether, Absolute Space and Time, . . . or Fairies and Witches was an essential step along the road to scientific thinking. Probability, too, if regarded as something endowed with some kind of objective existence, is no less a mis- leading misconception, an illusory attempt to exteriorize or materialize our true probabilistic beliefs.”

kgwgk 4y ago

I’m pretty sure you can as well! If you can pick Brazil or Morocco to win $1000 in case the one you choose wins the World Cup which one do you pick? Why? Are you really indifferent between them because you cannot conceive how saying that one is more likely to win than the other could have any relationship to reality?

ThomPete 4y ago
Again if i cant explain who will win, I am simply guessing.
- kgwgk 4y ago
  There is nothing in the mathematical definition of probability that prevents you from applying the formalism to “guessing”. The axiomatic definition of probability is about consistency - not about explanations. Whatever your definition of probability is it seems too restrictive. You may have another name for the “this is more likely than that” statements and the related reasoning processes essential in science, technology and survival in the world. Many people call that “probability” and sucessfully apply probability theory to reason about those things.
  - ThomPete 4y ago
    You are missing the point. There is no causal connection between what i describe the probability of X to be and the probability of X. You can say it's 50/50 I can say it's 20/80 none of that have any effect on the outcome. I can either explain the outcome or I cant and adding probability doesn't change that. Again we are not talking about ex. a deck of cards where there is a set number of cards. We are talking about open ended systems like reality.
    - kgwgk 4y ago
      You’re missing the bigger point that both 50/50 and 80/20 are valid probability assignments as far as the mathematical theory of probability is concerned. If we were talking about a deck of cards there would be no causal connection between the probability you assign to the next card in the deck and the next card in the deck. Note that for the deck of cards different people can also have different probability assignments! Maybe you saw the first 26 cards as they were dealt face up, I saw them plus the card at the bottom of the deck, someone else has just arrived and has seen only the latest card dealt. Each of us will calculate different probabilities for the next card but all of them are unrelated to reality where the next card in the deck is fixed but unknown to us. Can any of us “explain the outcome”?
      - ThomPete 4y ago
        Mathematical theory has no causal effect on reality either. So no I am not missing some bigger point. I might as well make a metaphysical claim like. Thor will make x happen. It's a metaphysical claim.
        kgwgk 4y ago
        Ok, so probability doesn't exist at all for you [1] and the deck of cards discussion is just a red herring. If your argument is that probability can't exist because if can't have a causal effect on reality maybe you should try to define and use probability as it's usually done - with the understanding that 'having a causal effect on reality' has nothing to do with it. Probability can be used to say things about reality. 'Things' like 'what we know or expect'. Probability is about uncertainty. Statistical mechanics will say things like 'the average energy in that system is whatever' - this is something about reality. Particle physics will say 'the half-life of that muon is whatever'. That's physics as far as my defition of physics goes. Can physics - in your view - explain that if you put together a glass of hot water and a glass of cold ethanol you end up with a warm mixture of water and ethanol? That "causality" only exists in a probabilistic sense after all... ——- [1] You are in good company. Bruno de Finetti wrote: “My thesis, paradoxically, and a little provocatively, but nonetheless genuinely, is simply this: PROBABILITY DOES NOT EXIST The abandonment of superstitious beliefs about the existence of the Phlogiston, the Cosmic Ether, Absolute Space and Time, . . . or Fairies and Witches was an essential step along the road to scientific thinking. Probability, too, if regarded as something endowed with some kind of objective existence, is no less a mis- leading misconception, an illusory attempt to exteriorize or materialize our true probabilistic beliefs.”