by Bayesianism — a scientific cul-de-sac One of my favourite “problem situating lecture arguments” against Bayesianism goes something like this: Assume you’re a Bayesian turkey and hold a nonzero probability belief in the hypothesis H that “people are nice vegetarians that do not eat turkeys and that every day I see the sun rise confirms my belief.” For every day you survive, you update your belief according to Bayes’ Rule P(H|e) = [P(e|H)P(H)]/P(e), where evidence e stands for “not being eaten” and P(e|H) = 1. Given that there do exist other hypotheses than H, P(e) is less than 1 and a fortiori P(H|e) is greater than P(H). Every day you survive increases your probability belief that you will not be eaten. This is totally rational according to the Bayesian definition of rationality.
Topics:
Lars Pålsson Syll considers the following as important:
This could be interesting, too:
Robert Vienneau writes Austrian Capital Theory And Triple-Switching In The Corn-Tractor Model
Mike Norman writes The Accursed Tariffs — NeilW
Mike Norman writes IRS has agreed to share migrants’ tax information with ICE
Mike Norman writes Trump’s “Liberation Day”: Another PR Gag, or Global Reorientation Turning Point? — Simplicius
Bayesianism — a scientific cul-de-sac
One of my favourite “problem situating lecture arguments” against Bayesianism goes something like this: Assume you’re a Bayesian turkey and hold a nonzero probability belief in the hypothesis H that “people are nice vegetarians that do not eat turkeys and that every day I see the sun rise confirms my belief.” For every day you survive, you update your belief according to Bayes’ Rule
P(H|e) = [P(e|H)P(H)]/P(e),
where evidence e stands for “not being eaten” and P(e|H) = 1. Given that there do exist other hypotheses than H, P(e) is less than 1 and a fortiori P(H|e) is greater than P(H). Every day you survive increases your probability belief that you will not be eaten. This is totally rational according to the Bayesian definition of rationality. Unfortunately — as Bertrand Russell famously noticed — for every day that goes by, the traditional Christmas dinner also gets closer and closer …
For more on my own objections to Bayesianism:
Bayesianism — a patently absurd approach to science
Bayesianism — preposterous mumbo jumbo
One of the reasons I’m a Keynesian and not a Bayesian
Keynes and Bayes in paradise