Dear Rich,
>...based on everything E that happens up to some point in time,
>something R ends up happening at the next instant. If that event is
>not deterministically determined by E, then what does determine it?
>... something made it happen... ... even if it is some random number
>generator
Dear Kathy,
I think Doug pretty much articulated my position. You (Kathy) said
the following (in reverse order):
KATHY:
"But a meaningful definition of "full knowledge" for a probability
assessment would have to include only events occurring at times
before the event in question. I suspect Ca
I've discovered that things that are blinding obvious to me are not
necessarily blinding obvious to other people. :-)
I agree with you that we can't rule out intrinsically deterministic
theories. You say it would "probably not be hard" to postulate a
deterministic theory that matches the pr
Kathy,
A blinding obvious answer is that both "sides" are completely jumping the gun
in
making any choice on these issues. Quantum field theory is intrinsically
probabilistic. However, it is just a good (OK, spectacular) model. It doesn't
mean that there isn't something entirely determinist
>§ Incidentally, isn't Pearl's theory of
>causality deterministic but yet probabilistic?
Pearl's early work dealt with causal Bayesian
networks with intrinsically stochastic causal
mechanisms, but in his later work he moved toward
Laplacian determinism and the view that
probability re
Dear Kathy, I think Doug pretty much articulated my position. You (Kathy) said the following (in reverse order): KATHY: "But a meaningful definition of "full knowledge" for a probability assessment would have to include only events occurring at times before the event in question. I suspect Ca
Dear Rich,
This is probably much more than you bargained for, but you asked for it! :-)
The Oxford American Dictionary defines objective as "having real
existence outside a person's mind." Strict subjectivists such as de
Finetti and Savage regard probabilities as entirely subjective
except f
Dear Rich,
Your interesting question stirred a lively discussion. Your question
raised another question: Is the conceptual structure of probability
theory an appropriate framework for formulating a definitive answer to
your question? In my view, the answer is: No.
The problem is: probability t
