Constant2 comments on Probability is Subjectively Objective - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 July 2008 09:16AM

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Comment author: Constant2 14 July 2008 06:21:16PM 1 point [-]

Probability isn't only used as an expression of a person's own subjective uncertainty when predicting the future. It is also used when making factual statements about the past. If a coin was flipped yesterday and came up heads 60% of the time, then it may have been a fair coin which happened to come up heads 60% of the time, or it may have been a trick, biased, coin, whose bias caused it to come up heads 60% of the time. To say that a coin is biased is to make a statement about probability. As Wikipedia explains:

In probability theory and statistics, a sequence of independent Bernoulli trials with probability 1/2 of success on each trial is metaphorically called a fair coin. One for which the probability is not 1/2 is called a biased or unfair coin.

So a statement about probability can enter into a factual claim about the causes of past events.