ONT Re: What Is Information That A Sign May Bear It? -- Discussion
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WIS Discussion. Note 12
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HT = Hugh Trenchard
Re: WIS 2. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05296.html
In: WIS. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd19.html#04317
HT: I just wanted to come back to WIS note 2 for a moment.
I had hoped to follow up on some of your responses to
questions I had, but something else occurred to me today
as I was reading von Baeyer's book, 'Information', over
my lunch hour today. At a number of points in the book
he discusses Bayesian probabilities. I took a few moments
to look into some more details about Bayesian probabilities
on the internet as well.
HT: My question is with respect to the point below where you
discuss compound uncertainty, and my question following in
which I ask whether we should account for the fact that once
a first choice is made, the line tracing compound uncertainty
follows from that point forward only, and that the overall
compound uncertainty is no longer derived from the initial
state of things.
HT: I do not pretend to understand Bayesian probabilities,
especially on a cursory review (and even after thorough
study I'm sure I would still be scratching my head) and
I suspect you have already given much thought to this.
HT: But in general principle, do we need, right from the start,
to factor the probability of a single choice among the four
possibilities in your scenario, the making of which serves
to increase the information quantity at the next step (e.g.
by Bayesian analysis)? If we do, then does this affect the
quantity of compound uncertainty (in your scenario it is 8)?
I have a hunch that it does, but it is only a hunch.
HT: I know you say that you are establishing only a basic analysis
at this point and that for a thorough analysis you could consider
aspects of game theory, but I am wondering if there is something
fundamental that must be considered in terms of probabilities --
something that affects the very principle you are espousing.
HT: Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I'll take a more thorough
look at your more recent postings over the next few days.
Hugh,
The way I look at things there are real situations
and then there are formal models and theories that
we use, or try to use, to deal with real situations.
Real situations are the real-live scenarios that
we find ourselves cast into somewhat willy-nilly.
There is nothing that says any one real situation
will be one bit like the last one or the next one.
Still, it pays to look for patterns in the action
that can be recognized from one scene to another.
Transacting between "domains of reality" (DOR's)
and "domains of models and theories" (DOMAT's) is
the business of "empirical scientific inference"
(ESI? -- well, no, it ain't always), which we all
learned some bits about under the venerable head
of "scientific method", but whose principles are
also found in everyday reasoning -- when it works --
so we may unite them under the name of "inquiry".
Whenever we go to lay some DOMAT before some DOR,
there are always assumptions involved in the act,
for starters, that what walks through the DOR is
the sort of thing that was foreseen in the weave
of the DOMAT.
The whole of "probability and statistics" (PAS)
is just another DOMAT that we use to deal with
whatever Nature sends through one of its DOR's,
not just one of the DOR's that is known to us.
But it does not anticipate more than it does,
nor can it dictate what Nature will do next,
nor can it ease our transactions with DOR's
the semblance of which nobody anticipated
in laying out its underlying assumptions.
At any rate, this is how it looks from the long view --
it may be a while before I get back to the close-ups.
Jon Awbrey
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http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
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