Want to be a 21st century intellectual? Learn about Bayes!

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Futurist George Dvorsky included Bayesianism into the list of Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual:

Bayesian Rationality: Bayesian rationality is a probabilistic approach to reasoning. Bayesian rationalists describe probability as the degree to which a person should believe a proposition. They also apply Bayes' theorem when inferring or updating their degree of belief when given new information. Some scientists and epistemologists hope to replace the Popperian view of proof with a Bayesian view.

I agree (of course). Popperian falsification is just a special case of the Bayesian view: if the likelihood P(data|model) is zero (indicating that the data is impossible given the model), P(model|data) is zero, regardless of the prior. But the Bayesian approach offers some sort of a weighted preference among all the models that haven't been refuted yet, balancing the Ockhamist preference for simplicity through the prior and the desire for accuracy through the likelihood.

7 Comments

Oh, joy!

Does this mean you'll consider more introductory posts? -- Not everyone who subscribed here took your classes, you know! :-)

Maybe you should do a "beginner's guide", etc.

It's a good idea, although it's Andrew who's teaching the classes, not Aleks ;)

Recommended readng on Bayes Rationality and Bayes applications for someone conversant in quatitative methods but not Bayes?

Thank you..Frank

Thank you, Aleks. It looks good.

Sorry for coming in late, but , but, this is all nice, but it would have been nicer if this futurologists crystal ball wasn´t so cloudy! \\

"Post-scarcity economics", anybody? As if there will not always be new "needs" which can be created by creative marketing? The latest on the must-have list
is space tourism: look at http://www.physorg.com/news89030325.html

The swedes will offer 20 minutes in space "sub-orbital" for only 200000$ from as early as
2010.

¿Will this also be included in "post-scarcity"?

Kjetil

I love lamp!

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  • Frank de Libero: Thank you, Aleks. It looks good. read more
  • Aleks: Frank, I like this introduction by Yudkowsky. read more
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  • Gabriel M.: Oh, joy! Does this mean you'll consider more introductory posts? read more