marc.geddes wrote:
>
> 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).
Cox showed it is a rational ideal for updating one's beliefs based on
new evidence. Has anyone shown that analogical reasoning is optimum in
any sense?
> 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.
What's a technical rebuttal if particle production isn't?? Failure to
predict what is observed is usually considered a severe defect in physics.
Also, note that there is no reason that there couldn't be both holistic
and reductionist accounts of the same thing.
Brent
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Received on Sat Aug 29 2009 - 00:12:40 PDT