Timeline for Can a zero prior probability for some theories be justified?
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15 events
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| Jul 12, 2023 at 23:00 | comment | added | Bobson | Also, you seem to misunderstand what Bayesian analysis is. As many other answers and comments point out, it is a framework for doing mathematically rigorous analysis of probability of something. You presumably do the same thing in your head (in a less rigorous manner) any time you read a comment here: it's called "considering new evidence". BA just provides a reproducible framework that lets you show your reasoning to other people. The concept is older than writing, just like people have been "conducting experiments" long before the scientific method was explicitly written down. | |
| Jul 12, 2023 at 22:55 | comment | added | Bobson | @thinkingman Like I said, it's used extensively in particle physics, and probably elsewhere. See lss.fnal.gov/archive/2010/pub/fermilab-pub-10-425-ppd.pdf for one paper that explicitly includes it as an important tool. I can't point to a specific discovery because I'm not a particle physicist, and most of the papers are over my head. But a simple google search proves that it's used frequently in such papers. But it is one tool they use to decide if there's enough confidence in their results to publish. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 22:36 | comment | added | user62907 | Postulation in physics usually means there is preliminary evidence of it. But nevertheless, until it was directly observed, then technically, it was never confirmed until then. None of this process requires Bayesian analysis. Point me to a single discovery that required it. Hint: you won’t find one. Scientific discoveries were made before Bayesian analysis was even a thing. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 22:32 | comment | added | Bobson | @thinkingman - I'm not sure where you draw that line. It took 40 years from when the Higgs boson was postulated until there was any proof that it actually existed. There were lots of expectations of how it would behave if it existed, based on how it fit in with other things, but there was no empirical evidence for it. Once there was such evidence, that's when it was "discovered", but in particle physics it's usually "postulate first, then go look for it", and (from what I understand) Beyesian analysis is a major component of particle physics. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 13:40 | comment | added | user62907 | That’s not the point. My comment was in response to Obie. The point is that in every case, we empirically observe things before a discovery. Not just postulate them. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 12:04 | comment | added | Bobson | @thinkingman - No, we've only proven that we currently have no way to subdivide quarks. As far as I'm aware, there isn't any way to prove that they aren't themselves composed of something else we just aren't capable of detecting, any more than there is a way to prove that there isn't a teapot in orbit around the sun. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 5:07 | comment | added | user62907 | We found out that indivisible particles exist by actually observing them, not postulating them. Democritus postulated them but had no evidence for this. Lastly, the zero prior is for a practical reason. Once there is direct evidence, you change that probability and it becomes the new prior. There’s no point being missed except on your end. Quarks and electrons aren’t PREDICTIONS. They are physical particles and mechanisms explaining the behavior of subatomic chemistry that are OBSERVED. There is no such equivalent for psychics. If there was, we can assign a nonzero prior. Until then, we can’t. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 4:34 | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | Looking at your previous questions, I suspect that your argument is a very roundabout form of trying to argue for the existence of the Christian God, despite the fact that you seem to be attacking a basis for not assuming a non-zero probability of Their existence. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 4:27 | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | @thinkingman - I think you are rather missing the point. There are particles that are indivisible, to the best of current scientific knowledge. People simply chose the word atom to represent one that turned out to be divisible. Under your "theoretical framework," not just Democritus but everyone else should assume that indivisible particles cannot exist. After all, all the evidence of quarks and electrons that has been collected is meaningless: Democritus should have assumed a prior probability of zero, and no evidence should change that, regardless of the mere fact of his death. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 1:42 | comment | added | user62907 | Democritus would be unjustified then. It doesn’t matter if he turned out to be right. Also, he was technically wrong. The atom is divisible. | |
| Jul 11, 2023 at 1:33 | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | @thinkingman - But not by Democritus. Unless he also found the secret to immortality, I suppose. | |
| Jul 10, 2023 at 21:19 | comment | added | user62907 | I don’t think that works as an analogy here since atoms and how they behave can be observed empirically. | |
| Jul 10, 2023 at 18:36 | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | Democritus postulated an irreducible substrate of all reality without any plausible mechanism for how this could be possible—indeed, by positing his atoms as irreducible, he basically denied that there was one—and in truly blatant contradiction to nearly all the available evidence. He was right. If someone proposes an irreducible form of knowledge via mind-reading in accordance with all the available evidence, as in the postulated scenario, they are already doing one better. | |
| Jul 10, 2023 at 10:00 | comment | added | user62907 | I don’t think the odds of something happening being astonishingly small implies that it is more likely that another reason caused it in the first place, since that reason itself would have to have evidence. The improbability of an outcome given hypothesis A does not imply a higher probability for another being true, especially if no other hypothesis has demonstrative evidence going for it, the kind that which I talked about. But otherwise, I agree on your last point. The word “psychic” really would exist to fill a gap in that case. | |
| Jul 10, 2023 at 9:51 | history | answered | Marco Ocram | CC BY-SA 4.0 |