Probability: A Philosophical Perspective, Part I
This is the first essay in a series looking at the foundations of probability, and it explores some possible rationalisations. The second essay will critique all probability as a concept.
There’s a second essay as a follow up below
Empirical knowledge is sourced from observations of data points and then constructing distributions (even if they are constructed implicitly). This turns out to imply that empirical knowledge is impossible — at least without priors determined by reason or a priori knowledge. (past experience indicates humans are not so good at working out things by abstract reason alone, so prospects for knowledge are dim)
Motivation
Definitions of probability remain very elusive. Mathematically, the definition is not so hard, and questions of probability boil down to counting the number of ‘equally likely’ outcomes in a set. Beyond the mathematics, it is unclear what a probability is.
What probabilities are has important effects on all reasoning. Consider the fine-tuning argument for God. Implicit in the step that ‘the constant is unbelievably finely tuned’ to ‘hence it is unlikely to happen without a God’ the…
