[extropy-chat] Indifference (was Coin Flip Paradox)

[gts]

A person interested in this subject wrote to me in private e-mail,  
suggesting that I should elaborate and clarify my meaning about a certain  
sentence I wrote here.

I'm embarrassed because English is my first language and I have no excuse  
for not communicating my meanings clearly. I'm sorry if my meanings are so  
unclear. If they are unclear then I'm grateful to the person who pointed  
it out.

The dubious passage of mine was this one:

"...the frequency theory is an objectivist, non-epistemic account of  
probability in which the epistemic principle of indifference is irrelevant  
and nonsensical."

I was responding here to Stu's argument that the principle of indifference  
is somehow provable according to frequentist rationale.  I maintain it is  
not.

On the frequency theory of probability, probabilities are not in any way  
subjective judgments. They are instead properties of the objective world.  
They exist "out there" in the supposed world of objective physical  
reality, as opposed to "in here" in the subjective world of the mind.

The principle of indifference implies an epistemic (subjective) idea of  
probability. I think it is impossible to prove the veracity of the  
principle of indifference given the objectivist assumptions of frequentism.

This is why I wrote that the frequency theory is an objectivist,  
non-epistemic account of probability in which the epistemic  
(non-objectivist) principle of indifference is irrelevant and nonsensical.  
Under frequentism I think the principle of indifference is neither true  
nor false. I think it is nonsensical. My apologies if that idea is not  
clear.

-gts