Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Tom Grey's avatar

This probably won't be Arnold's last post on probability!

The usefulness of probability is not explained here, either, nor with the COVID example.

The link to Briggs has, in his A - I list of "is" and "is not/ has not" the best answer:

H: Probability is not real. ... It is purely a measure of information.

The laws, rules, of probability don't get to the heart of why to study probability:

To Make Better Decisions. And, because of uncertainty, a key reality in Decision Analysis is:

Good Decisions can have bad outcomes, while

Bad Decisions can have good outcomes -- but such decisions probably won't.

Probability is different and separate from the search for Truth.

I'm now reading My Quantum Experience, where Horgan the science writer is writing about his learning about Quantum Mechanics (not so much about QM as about his own auto-bio journal in learning it).

https://johnhorgan.org/books/my-quantum-experiment/chapter-one

In chapter two he clearly differentiates between coin tossing spin and the +1 or -1 spin of an electron:

"Another important point: Your uncertainty about the electron’s spin isn’t like your uncertainty about a spinning coin. You could in principle measure all the forces acting on a spinning coin and predict exactly how it will land. You can’t do that with an electron. No matter how precise your measurements are, the uncertainty persists."

Probability is the language we use to attempt to describe the reality of uncertainty. Including that which we have in our heads about an event in the past, like a stepped on coin we haven't yet seen. We all use it, mostly implicitly, when we decide what to do based on what think will most probably happen -- and it mostly does, most of the time.

Expand full comment
Gordon Tremeshko's avatar

Probabilities are hard, especially when there's uncertainty.

--Yogi Berra

Expand full comment
54 more comments...

No posts