I'm trying to understand how Bayes formula helps us make guesses about the past.
What are your thoughts about the following philosophical metaphor regarding claims about events in the past?
Whenever we discuss something that has happened in the past, we are always discussing something abstract which we can't know 100% is true aka a web of guesses. When we try to establish what has happened in the past based on evidence it is similar to throwing a one "magic dart" into the past hoping to hit a big red ballon(big=high probability) which gives us a high score instead of hitting small low probability ballons.
What Bayes theorem does is to help us find where the big red balloon is most likely to be located before we throw the dart.
The base rate is which area that usually have a big red balloon and the evidence adjusts the location we should aim for.
Epistemically we are only justified to throw the dart into the area which has a red balloon to score the highest possible.
Many thanks