Questions tagged [probability]
The probability tag has no usage guidance.
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How improbable does an event have to be before we can say it didn't happen by chance?
What is the probability threshold below which we can confidently say that a blind process did not create the supposed event?
For example, how many heads in a row would we need to say that it did not ...
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Deterministic or stochastic universe?
Just a little bit before my graduation from computer science, I attended a course about computational intelligence, and my professor then challenged us to debate on whether the world/universe follows ...
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How could Occam's razor possibly be used metaphysically?
Occam's razor, or the law of parsimony, states that the simplest explanation for any given data is most likely the correct one.
Some have attempted to use Occam's razor in a metaphysical sense, to ...
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Does Bayesianism give an out for pseudoscience that it shouldn’t deserve?
In Bayesianism, every belief in a hypothesis is updated in the same way. You have a prior probability P (H). You have the probability of an observation under a hypothesis P (E|H). And then you update ...
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How valid is assignment of probabilites when evidence is totally lacking, as in Pascal's Wager?
The SEP article discussing Pascal's Wager states,
Premise 1 presupposes that you should have a probability for God’s existence in the first place. However, perhaps you could rationally fail to ...
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Does logic give us a single definitive and universal answer for comparing the odds of unlikely events?
As an amateur who has interest in logic and mathematics I've been reading about the concept of different probability perceptions. I'd like to have your opinions over the subject below.
When it comes ...
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Is an omniscient entity self-refuting?
Consider a thought experiment involving 'something' and three individuals attempting to understand it: one person claims it is a red ball, another asserts it is a simulation, and the third insists it ...
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Isn't the notion that everything will occur in an infinite timeline an example of the gambler's fallacy?
I've seen a few different formulations of this, but the most famous is "monkeys on a typewriter" - that if you put a team of monkeys on a typewriter, given infinite time, they will eventually produce ...
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Does every possible event have non-zero probability?
Almost every human being would agree that 2 + 2 != 5. In a sense, this is a logical impossibility.
However, almost every human being would also agree that pigs can't fly. Some, however, are adamant in ...
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Isn’t everything absurdly improbable?
Isn’t every event by definition improbable in the sense that each event precedes an infinite series of causes that could have (theoretically atleast) been different?
We think of someone winning five ...
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What justifies probability in the case of a onetime experiment?
If I have an "experiment", the results of which can be classified clearly into "outcomes" (like rolling a die), then I can make a concrete and verifiable empirical claim that "if you repeat this ...
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Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
If I experience a coincidence or a coincidence happens in the world that seems to be at extremely low odds, does this imply that God exists? If it doesn’t imply that God exists, can it at least make ...
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Almost Sure Mind Transfer via Parfit's Identity Theory (interesting thought experiment)
Under Derek Parfit's theory of identity, we should direct our concern to future selves not because they are identical to us, but because they bear some special relation to our current self. He used ...
user4634
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Can there only be one success in an infinite amount of trials?
The premise is basically that there is an infinite amount of trials and a trial could either be a success or a failure. In this trial set, is it actually possible for there to be one and only one ...
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Why don't fair coin tosses "add up"? Or... is "gambler's fallacy" really valid?
I have always been perplexed by a seeming paradox in probability that I'm sure has some simple, well-known explanation. We say that a "fair coin" or whatever has "no memory."
At each toss the odds ...
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Why would infinite monkeys not produce the works of Shakespeare?
Apologies if this is a very basic/obvious question. I have no training in philosophy, but have been making my way through Peter Adamson's History of Philosophy podcast.
Recently I listened to his ...
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Is the notion of "Complex System" a philosophy of science? Is it the opposite of Reductionism? Is it related to Holism?
I have tried to come to terms with the notion of "complex systems" of which I heard in one of the lessons at school though without too much depth. I grasp that a complex system is such that ...
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Is the SETI project built on false premises?
The SETI project analyzes signals and looks for patterns, some of which include prime number sequences that have an absurdly low improbability of occurring. It does this to detect intelligent life.
...
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Is there a term for the position "no determinism but no free will"?
Often when free will is discussed, there are three main positions espoused:
Libertarian: The universe is not deterministic and there is free will
Hard-determinism: The universe is deterministic and ...
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Probabilistic prediction (quantum mechanics) - what is the meaning of such a prediction and how do you falsify it?
Suppose there's a hypothetical quantum physics experiment. There are 2 possible outcomes to this experiment A or B. QM predicts that the probability of each is 50%.
Firstly, what is the meaning of ...
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Does the propensity interpretation of probability rely on the principle of indifference?
According to the late Popper, among others, probability is the propensity of a set of conditions to produce certain long run relative frequencies. Therefore if we say that a certain set of conditions ...
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What is Quine's perspective on probability?
I am curious about what Quine's perspective on probability may be and if we can say that the quinean viewpoint on modality can be considered similar to his viewpoint on probability.
Is probability ...
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Does Bayesianism not discriminate against ad hoc hypotheses?
Bayesianism doesn't seem to discriminate against ad hoc hypotheses.
A simple example illustrates this.
Let's assume a person tosses a coin 20 straight times and it lands on heads. They, ad hoc, start ...
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Observing a zero probability event
I am not a philosopher. Just curious. From a philosophical point of view, if one observes an event with zero probability, does this immediately lead to a contradiction? For example, if you have a ...
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What is unique about the quantum state of superposition?
In the state of quantum superposition, as most famously illustrated by Schrodinger's Cat, we have a well-defined set of probabilistic outcomes that is not determined until observed. The cat is then ...
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How does probability constitute as knowledge in justified belief theory?
This is not the classic lottery paradox. Details of that are available at Epistemic Paradoxes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Suppose there is one lottery with 100,000 tickets and one prize. I ...
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Question about the "catch-all" hypothesis as a response to the "bad lot" objection
In response to van Fraassen's "bad lot" objection, I have seen in multiple papers (and in the response of Lipton, from what I remember) refer to the idea of the use of a 'catch-all' hypothesis which ...
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How does one solve this paradox of independent probability?
There seems to be a paradox in my head when it comes to evaluating independent probabilities and it's sort of boggling my head. I am curious as to how to solve it.
Suppose I tell my friend to think of ...
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Why are physical and logical probabilities considered separate?
It is argued that there is a difference between these probabilities. When a dice lands on 6, it is argued that because it could have landed on 1-5 by the nature of physical laws, the probability is 1/...
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Is it possible to enumerate metaphysical hypotheses?
Recently, I had an argument with someone who stated that the chance of experiencing nothing after death is extremely low. Their reasoning was that one can think of many more metaphysical realities in ...
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Does even fixed probability imply no free will?
If we have 1000000 identical ppl and we tell them to choose left or right, roughly 50% will choose each direction. Same thing if repeated million times. Then are they really free?
The only definition ...
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Does everything have a infinitesimal amount of uncertainty?
Suppose a soldier has to fight unarmed against 200 opponents. Most people would say that the soldier is certainly dead. However, quantum mechanics dictates that there is always some degree of ...
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Philosophical implications of central limit theorem (CLT)
Central limit theorem (CLT) establishes that, for the most commonly
studied scenarios, when independent random variables are added, their
sum tends toward a normal distribution (commonly known as ...
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Bayesian argument for combining extraordinary claims
This is an improved version of Backwards Bayesian argument for alien visitation?
It is said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and therefore this criterion is applied to every ...
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Would the kind of probability involved in strong/hard free will be non-unitary?
By "unitarity" I mean that the sums of the probabilities in the given cases would be 1. Non-unitarity would, I assume (for now!), allow for final negative probabilities as well as imaginary-/...
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Do probability and statistics apply to the decisions of an agent with libertarian free will?
Do probability and statistics apply to libertarian free agents? Can a libertarian free agent have a statistical tendency towards certain decisions? Would it make sense to say, for example, that there ...
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Bayes and unknown probabilites: is this reasoning from the failure of explanation a fallacy?
Bayesian probability is an interpretation of the concept of
probability, in which, instead of frequency or propensity of some
phenomenon, probability is interpreted as reasonable expectation
...
user38026