Re: Bayes Destroyed?

From: marc.geddes <marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:57:59 -0700 (PDT)

On Aug 29, 6:41 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> marc.geddes wrote:
>
> > On Aug 29, 5:30 am, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> >> marc.geddes wrote:
>
>
> > *Before* you can even begin to assign probabilities to anything, you
> > first need to form symbolic representations of the things you are
> > talking about; see Knowledge Representation:
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_representation
>
> > This is where categories come in – to represent knowledge you have to
> > group raw sensory data into different categories, this is a
> > prerequisite to any sort of ‘degrees of belief’, which shows that
> > probabilities are not as important as knowledge representation. In
> > fact knowledge representation is actually doing most of the work in
> > science, and Bayesian ‘degrees of belief’ are secondary.
>
> I have no problem with that.  Certainly you form propositions
> (representations of knowledge) before you can worry your degree of
> belief in them.  But you started with the assertion that you were going
> to "destroy Bayesian reasoning" and since Bayes=reductionism this was
> going to destroy reductionism.  Now, you've settled down to saying that
> forming categories is prior to Bayesian reasoning.  People that post
> emails with outlandish assertions simply to stir up responses are called
> "Trolls".

There are many logicians who think that Bayesian inference can serve
as the entire foundation of rationality and is the most powerful form
of reasoning possible (the rationalist ideal). What I'm 'destroying'
is that claim. And I've done that. But of course Bayes is still very
useful and powerful.



>
> > Since Bohm's views are non-reductionist and still perfectly
> > consistent, this casts serious doubt on the entire reductionist world-
> > view on which Bayesian reasoning is based.
>
> I don't know why the mere existence of some consistent holistic math
> model - which cannot account for observed particle production - should
> count as evidence against a reductionist world view.
>

Because if the reductionist world-view is the correct one, the non-
reductionist world view should have serious inconsistencies, the fact
that there's not yet a conclusive technical rebuttal of Bohm counts as
evidence against reductionism.
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Received on Fri Aug 28 2009 - 23:57:59 PDT

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