<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"></div><div dir="ltr">On Nov 1, 2021, at 11:22 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">If I may stop and pick a nit: <span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(34,34,34)">such a feat is more possible for most people adrian</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">Now is 'possible' the same as 'probable'? I think of possible as being of two sorts: possible and impossible and nothing in between, so you can't get more or less possible the way you can get probable and improbable - a dichotomy versus a continuous variable, that is. bill w</div></div></div></blockquote><br><div><div dir="ltr">I’m with you on this, though many people use possible as a shorthand for ‘merely possible’ or ‘unlikely but not impossible.’ There’s usually little harm done as long as they don’t generalize that, especially when it comes to things like formal modal logic. (I bring that up because I got into just such a discussion where someone didn’t understand that the usual interpretation of modal possibility doesn’t specify any probability.)</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">I have a bit to pick too: probabilities can be either continuous or discrete. So it’s not a binary vs continuous variable, but a binary versus a range (a greater then binary one, which can be but need not be continuous). Think of it this way: with two ‘normal’ dice under ‘normal’ conditions, it’s impossible to roll anything outside the range of 2 to 12 (in whole numbers). But the odds of each combination in that range are not continuous. They’re discrete, such as the odds of rolling a 2 Is 1 in 36, the chances of rolling a 3 is 2 in 36, but there’s nothing in between these two probabilities. They’re all discrete jumps of a whole number in 36 chance.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Regards,</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Dan</div></div></body></html>