Hello folks, this is what I am currently wondering as I explain here http://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/201 ... pretation/
I would be very glad if you could give me your opinion on that, wherever you want.
I truly hope we will have a enjoyable conversation.
Is Bayesianism meaningful?
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The Voice of Time
- Posts: 2234
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- Location: Norway
Re: Is Bayesianism meaningful?
Well basically it's widely inaccurate to say it has any reliable relationship with "belief". Probability is subject to how we know to articulate ourselves and how we can quantify things as well as random notions, it's a social concept first and foremost, its individual use is subject to learning and capability. "Belief" on the other hand is subject to the power of an idea, so the only way you could pair the two is to have a very powerful idea of probability, but even then it'd probably be disproportionate to the actual result.
The power of an idea would depend on a number of factors, but basically I'd say it's a matter of how the rest of our mind is built up, because the mind, or brain, is the facility for which ideas wire themselves up, and gain "power" in the form of being able to reach the controls of the body and being able to influence other ideas.
People can go straight against impossible odds just because they believe that if they try the might succeed or at least make a difference, so belief is a very powerful thing and its relationship with probability is one of "listen, ignore, listen, ignore", and so forth.
The power of an idea would depend on a number of factors, but basically I'd say it's a matter of how the rest of our mind is built up, because the mind, or brain, is the facility for which ideas wire themselves up, and gain "power" in the form of being able to reach the controls of the body and being able to influence other ideas.
People can go straight against impossible odds just because they believe that if they try the might succeed or at least make a difference, so belief is a very powerful thing and its relationship with probability is one of "listen, ignore, listen, ignore", and so forth.
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Arising_uk
- Posts: 12314
- Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am
Re: Is Bayesianism meaningful?
It depends on what you consider to be a prior. In your example you seem to define a prior to be a direct measurement or observation of the same type as you will obtain when you start experiments to obtain your first data point. That is usually not the case in the development of scientific or engineering models and theorems. There usually are precursor observations that lead you to form associations in your mind with the actual quantity you are interested in measuring.
In the case of Newton it was the apple and probably astronomical observations and facts available at that time. For Einstein to think that light will bend when passing close to the sun may partially have been based on Newton's results.
For religion, an apostle may have heard about a miracle by Christ and formed a theorem and probability before observing the actual data point.
For us similarly 99.9... % of our information is obtained from outside sources and we form priors without seeing the actual data. Traditional frequency distributions still enter the picture when an associated observation is repeated and/or if quality of the information is increased. E.g., two of your highly reliable and trusted friends report the miracle to you or 15 of your casual acquaintances of unknown veracity, etc.. If you think about it, this is practically almost the only way we acquire knowledge because we can't possibly experience and test everything ourselves.
I therefore think that you seriously underestimate the importance of the traditional frequency distribution in providing us with partial or more complete likelihood estimates concerning the practical as well as more esoteric matters in our life. The problem for the secularist is that they cherry pick when and how to apply frequency distributions based on their pre-conceived notions. For example, even if miracles are observed and confirmed for 30 years to have taken place and been observed by large numbers of witnesses and have scientifically been confirmed to be impossible natural phenomena so that serious scientist, medical, psychological, social teams of experts categorized them as supernatural events using the most modern testing methods over the last 30 years, even then the close minded secularist will not accept competent witness testimony. Thus, your probabilities depend not only on frequency and quality but on other human qualities as well like character, honesty, objectivity, etc..
See this link concerning the miracles I am talking about.
http://www.medjugorje.com/medjugorje/sc ... udies.html
In the case of Newton it was the apple and probably astronomical observations and facts available at that time. For Einstein to think that light will bend when passing close to the sun may partially have been based on Newton's results.
For religion, an apostle may have heard about a miracle by Christ and formed a theorem and probability before observing the actual data point.
For us similarly 99.9... % of our information is obtained from outside sources and we form priors without seeing the actual data. Traditional frequency distributions still enter the picture when an associated observation is repeated and/or if quality of the information is increased. E.g., two of your highly reliable and trusted friends report the miracle to you or 15 of your casual acquaintances of unknown veracity, etc.. If you think about it, this is practically almost the only way we acquire knowledge because we can't possibly experience and test everything ourselves.
I therefore think that you seriously underestimate the importance of the traditional frequency distribution in providing us with partial or more complete likelihood estimates concerning the practical as well as more esoteric matters in our life. The problem for the secularist is that they cherry pick when and how to apply frequency distributions based on their pre-conceived notions. For example, even if miracles are observed and confirmed for 30 years to have taken place and been observed by large numbers of witnesses and have scientifically been confirmed to be impossible natural phenomena so that serious scientist, medical, psychological, social teams of experts categorized them as supernatural events using the most modern testing methods over the last 30 years, even then the close minded secularist will not accept competent witness testimony. Thus, your probabilities depend not only on frequency and quality but on other human qualities as well like character, honesty, objectivity, etc..
See this link concerning the miracles I am talking about.
http://www.medjugorje.com/medjugorje/sc ... udies.html