gwern comments on (Subjective Bayesianism vs. Frequentism) VS. Formalism - Less Wrong

27 Post author: potato 26 November 2011 05:05AM

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Tags: probability philosophy reductionism bayes verificationism

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Comment author: fubarobfusco 25 November 2011 07:26:55PM -1 points [-]

Formalists do not commit themselves to probabilities, just as they do not commit themselves to numbers

And yet, if I set one apple next to one apple, there are two apples. Arithmetic predicts facts about the world with such reliability that it is perfectly reasonable to say that sentences about numbers have real-world truth values, regardless of whether numbers "exist". We come up with arithmetic because it enables us to make sense of the world, because the world actually does behave that way.

Comment author: gwern 27 November 2011 09:22:54PM *  5 points [-]

And yet, if I set one apple next to one apple, there are two apples.

And if I pour one bucket of water into another, do I now have two buckets?

(Yes, there's something being conserved in this example, but is it 'number of buckets'/'number of apples'?)

Comment author: wedrifid 28 November 2011 05:36:29AM *  0 points [-]

And if I pour one bucket of water into another, do I now have two buckets?

Yes? One empty bucket, one full bucket and a bunch of water that overflowed and went on the floor.

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