New answers tagged philosophy-of-science
2
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How meaningful is the notion of now here on Earth?
The moment of a conscious thought is a personal now, which you could line up with a time, say 3pm. If your friend is orbiting Earth in a satellite his clock might tick slower, but it can be adjusted ...
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3
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How meaningful is the notion of now here on Earth?
Special relativity has no bearing whatsoever on your day to day activities. If you are moving relative to someone else, then yes in theory you will be time dilated in their frame of reference and they ...
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Top-down vs bottom-up approaches in science?
The distinction between 'Principle' theory and 'Constructive' theory is one that Einstein made: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/
The central question is whether we can ...
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How can this counterexample to Bayesian reasoning be addressed?
To make this example more concrete, you can simply imagine some supposed psychic trying to guess a number between 1 and 10^10 among 10^10 different people where they all think of a number in that ...
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3
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What is the relationship between the scientific experimental method and the two espistemologies of empiricism and rationalism
Empericism claims knowledge is post-experience. Rationalism is the opposite view that knowledge is pre-experience. Experiments can be thought of as experiences and are aimed at acquiring knowledge ...
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4
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Accepted
What is the relationship between the scientific experimental method and the two espistemologies of empiricism and rationalism
The terms you are using are somewhat ambiguous. Here is a bit of clarification:
The first Empiricists were physicians of classical Greece who opposed the theories of the sort used by Hippocratic ...
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What does it mean for something to be "more likely"? Whether you would bet on it? Whether history suggests it to be true? Or both?
In short, "more likely" means a higher likelihood, which you can attempt to approximate using historical data, and which you can attempt to use in your favor when betting. Everything else ...
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6
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What does it mean for something to be "more likely"? Whether you would bet on it? Whether history suggests it to be true? Or both?
I believe you are asking the same question over and over again in all these posts: can probability theory help me with subjective decisions?
Cutting to the chase, probability theory is a mathematical ...
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1
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What does it mean for something to be "more likely"? Whether you would bet on it? Whether history suggests it to be true? Or both?
It's subjective because terms like "professional, non-professional, good, bad" have no objective meaning in your question. What is the statistical difference between a professional and an ...
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3
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What does it mean for something to be "more likely"? Whether you would bet on it? Whether history suggests it to be true? Or both?
Your are supposing that 'more likely' has a well defined meaning, which is quite wrong. The way the phrase might be used by a physicist or statistician might be quite different to the way in which it ...
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2
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What does it mean for something to be "more likely"? Whether you would bet on it? Whether history suggests it to be true? Or both?
Excellent question. It is a tremendously broad question, as all interesting questions are because while all people use phrases that relay confidence in outcomes and events, very few people reflect on ...
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Are the priors of Bayesianism really subjective?
To take your last question first... "If one can have a subjective prior for anything, then what's the point of differentiating between claims?" There are convergence theorems in Bayesian ...
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Is scientific knowledge personal or general?
I suspect your question would disappear if you were to think in less-ambiguous terms. Knowledge is a broad and nebulous term, and can refer to personal and collective knowledge, so the literal answer ...
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Are the priors of Bayesianism really subjective?
You can't have a measured probability without a sample set in which to count a frequency. And: Although you can stretch the inferrence chain a long way (with ever expanding error bars), you can't have ...
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How can this counterexample to Bayesian reasoning be addressed?
There are a few points you need to bear in mind.
Bayes' theorem is just that- a theorem, so it is mathematically correct.
Bayesian inference works with subjective probabilities.
As with any ...
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0
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How can this counterexample to Bayesian reasoning be addressed?
This seems very similar to another question that you asked recently. In that question, you said that H was the hypothesis than an invisible monster causes a coin to always land on heads, and ~H was &...
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Is scientific knowledge personal or general?
Half this question is philosophical, and half belongs on meta, but I'll just respond here to avoid being a procedural pedant.
Is scientific knowledge personal or general?
Yes and no depending on ...
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2
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Is scientific knowledge personal or general?
So there is subjectivity, there is (allegedly) objectivity. There's a third option - intersubjectivity, an ancient idea, also popular in modern philosophy including as a special focus for Husserl.
The ...
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2
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Is scientific knowledge personal or general?
As Conifold told you, this is a Q&A site, so I'll answer the question as if you were asking for a literature reference related with your thoughts.
First, you seem to suppose that something called &...
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When is observation A better evidence of a theory than observation B?
Suppose there are 2 tests (A and B) that can be conducted to connect a person to a crime.
Test A is such that the probability of the corresponding evidence E1 matching a person other than the ...
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2
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Is the Bayesian idea of a continuous degree of belief incorrect?
You seem to roughly have these 2 possibilities:
An invisible monster is controlling the coin and causing it to land on heads every single time.
The coin is fair (or will always land on tails).
This ...
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0
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Are random processes equivalent to unpredictable processes
Unpredictable means it is impossible to predict. Random means it can be predicable or unpredicatble but you dont know between this two determined features.
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How come when theories of concepts are made, there is never an agnostic point of accepting that there may be things we will never know?
A measure is a representation of a specific feature of any phonomenon. What ever you measure it would be difference with the real value of the objet measured and the measure and someway we cant ...
5
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Is the Bayesian idea of a continuous degree of belief incorrect?
There are 2 problems in your understanding here I suspect.
How improbable some things are is difficult to understand.
Alternative explanations for your experiment change how things work in ...
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0
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Are random processes equivalent to unpredictable processes
No they are not equivalent. Unpredictability has a wider meaning than randomness. Random means that there is no systematic pattern. Unpredictable can mean that there is a pattern but you do not know ...
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Is the Bayesian idea of a continuous degree of belief incorrect?
If you like things Bayesian and also like things cognition, I recommend you look into Karl Friston's research. He specializes in computational neuroscience. For me the theoretical physics behind his ...
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2
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Are random processes equivalent to unpredictable processes
Randomness is a complicated concept with different meanings in different contexts.
Unpredictability is common to all meanings of random, but everything unpredictable is not random.
In statistics, ...
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4
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How come when theories of concepts are made, there is never an agnostic point of accepting that there may be things we will never know?
I think what you mean is that there is a difference between how we perceive reality and how it actually is.
The most important and unbreachable dividing line is in your head. There are also dividing ...
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11
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Accepted
Is the Bayesian idea of a continuous degree of belief incorrect?
You seem to be asking several questions here. First, does Bayesian conditioning work?
Bayesian conditioning, considered as an idealised model of rational updating of hypotheses based on evidence, has ...
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5
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Is the Bayesian idea of a continuous degree of belief incorrect?
It depends on the premises which we are willing to allow.
If you want to say that a person either believes that something is true, or believes that it is false, and there is no middle ground permitted,...
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Is the Bayesian idea of a continuous degree of belief incorrect?
I'm not sure how well this plays into Bayesianism directly, but suppose that beliefs are physical states with a probabilistic basis (metaphysically, as grounded in the limit in quantum fields; or ...
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When is observation A better evidence of a theory than observation B?
A single observation — one measured event — is effectively meaningless, scientifically speaking. It's a single data point, with no context or orientation. Literally, if we saw the sun rise once and ...
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Is finding meaning in something in hindsight the same as predicting it?
Now imagine if my friend predicted this. He knew that my lucky number was 150 and predicted that I'd throw the game winning pass with that much time remaining and predicted that the game would end at ...
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2
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When is observation A better evidence of a theory than observation B?
You seem to think that coincidence per se should affect one's view of probabilities. Suppose I hypothesised that a malignant magic kangaroo on Mars was going to kill someone in the city tomorrow, and ...
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4
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How is the concept of a topos in mathematics relevant to philosophy?
Could you explain what are the various ways topoi are used in philosophy?
Let's start with a quotation Robert Goldblatt's text on the matter:
The notion of topos has great unifying power. It ...
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If the gambler's fallacy is real, why should our belief in propositions depend on past events?
Say there are 10 people and there are 100 numbers to choose from.
The first person chooses a number and I'm supposed to guess it. The chances that I'll get it right is 1/100 and say I did get it right,...
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5
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How is the concept of a topos in mathematics relevant to philosophy?
The word 'localization' here has a specific technical meaning; it's referring to the localization of a category:
[L]ocalization of a category consists of adding to a category inverse morphisms for ...
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Is the concept of having a degree of belief rational?
The concept of having a degree of belief is a rational one. It is a central feature of decision theory. The use of probabilities to represent degrees of belief can be justified using Dutch book ...
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Is the concept of having a degree of belief rational?
If the aim is to deliver a message, the more spectacularly done, the more likely is it going to be taken seriously. After all the objective is to display power & wisdom. I'd say the probability of ...
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1
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Is the concept of having a degree of belief rational?
If you want to use a probabilistic framework to decide the question, and if there is no evidence or prior to tilt the balance when you are faced with N possible alternatives, the most rational thing ...
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Philosophy - Does Einstein's Block Universe theory prove Nietzsche's Eternal Return theory is true?
No, you are attributing qualities to spacetime that are not required. Consider the analogy with space. You might suppose all of space exists, but you would not necessarily suppose that you exist ...
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0
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Philosophy - Does Einstein's Block Universe theory prove Nietzsche's Eternal Return theory is true?
Assuming:
Time is infinite
Human needs logic to perceive passage of time
Time is the only element to rule the occurence state (has to be checked), otherwise it has to be able to bear infinity and ...
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Does prediction really have epistemic value?
The temporal veil of ignorance between the present and the future gives true predictions their epistemic value. It's an undeniable fact that nobody really knows what's gonna happen the next instant ...
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Does prediction really have epistemic value?
Lot's of good, intuitive answers here. I'm going to take things a little more formally.
Epistemic force is a term you might hear regarding assertions. It essentially means that some assertions have ...
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2
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Does prediction really have epistemic value?
Humans don't like surprises. Most surprises that make a difference are not birthday parties or checks in the mail. They are volcanoes erupting, pouncing carnivores, financial crashes, and spouses who ...
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2
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Does prediction really have epistemic value?
I think @haxor789 and @kutschkem give the basic answer, but to expand on some of your points:
Suppose I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 100 and I enter a restaurant. I check the table number and ...
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Determinism vs prediction
Determinism is the only scientifically accepted method of prediction. We have some basic laws and we know how they work on matter and energy. Once we know the initial state, we can calculate quite ...
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7
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Does prediction really have epistemic value?
True vs. Useful
Most theories are not strictly "true" or "false". Newton's theory of gravity depends on a view of spacetime that is generally agreed to be false (roughly true in ...
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3
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Does prediction really have epistemic value?
Evaluating the reliability of predictions forms a huge part of science, statistics, epistemology, striving towards truth and just daily life (whether you're consciously aware of it or not).
Let's say ...
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