virus: Probabilities (was: What does it mean to be me?)

From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Wed Nov 26 2003 - 12:45:55 MST

  • Next message: Walter Watts: "Re: virus: Zionism, Anti-Semitism and American Democracy"

    [Lucifer]
    The probability of me sitting here reading this is 1.0. The odds of me being in another century are zero because if I was it wouldn't be me.

    [rhinoceros]
    I toss a coin 100 times. In the 87th toss, I get "heads". What can I say in this case? Can I say that the probability that it would be heads in the 87th toss is 1?

    Apparently it depends on how you define probabilitiy In the classical theory of probability the answer would be no. In the Bayesian theory of probability used in decision theory the answer might be yes (if you define probability as a means of reducing your uncertainty). I'll return to this issue soon -- no time now. 

    ----
This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2003 board on Church of Virus BBS.
<http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=54;action=display;threadid=29721>
---
To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Nov 26 2003 - 12:46:06 MST