[extropy-chat] what is probability?

[Russell Wallace]

On 1/15/07, gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> You missed one of my starting assumptions: I wrote that we're conducting
> this political research "at a time in which the entire country is in
> political turmoil such that not even national statistics can be relied
> upon for priors."
>

Nope, I covered that in the bits where I said "Maybe said data is no longer
very reliable, but if you just make things up [i.e. use the principle of
indifference] the reliability is zero, so better to use what you have." and
"If that's still not enough for a reliable answer, you go out and gather
data by polling substantial numbers of people, and use the result of that as
your prior for further investigation."

I'm not sure I really want to argue with you that there is any time in
> which one absolutely must rely on the PI, because like you I am inclined
> to agree with those who would like to dispel the belief that the PI is a
> valid principle of logic.


Well then we have no disagreement ^.^
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