Re: Programming is the Engineering Discipline of the Science that is Mathematics

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:01:46 GMT
Message-ID: <KAMig.20486$A26.470258@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>

vc wrote:

> Keith H Duggar wrote:
> 

>>>vc wrote:
>>
>>[snip VI crap]
>>
>>In order to give vc a specific equation reference to stare
>>at, I had to pull out my copy of
>>
>>"Probability Theory: The Logic of Science" by E. T. Jaynes
>>
>>Reminded of what an excellent book it is (even though sadly
>>Jaynes died before completing it), I started reading the
>>first few chapters again. I ran across this statement by
>>Jaynes:
>>
>> "Aristotelian deductive logic is the limiting form of our
>> rules for plausible reasoning, as the robot becomes more
>> certain of its conclusions."

> 
> The informal statement above should be read metaphorically rather than
> literally.  PT aint' no logic due to lack of truth functionality,  and
> the 'reduction' to logic,  which you've failed to prove by the way,  is
> possible only in trivial and uninteresting cases.

Are you seriously suggesting that true and false are trivial and uninteresting? Should we all pack up and go home?

>>This is nearly an exact paraphrase of my original comment
>>which vc vociferously and ignorantly attacked.
>>Chapter 2 of
>>the book also contains derivations nearly identical to those
>>I have posted here that vc called "mindless playing with
>>formulas". So at least I'm in good company, vc, you
>>vociferous ignoramus.

> 
> What Jaynes did in his derivation of the sum/product rules  has got
> nothing to do with your mindless playing with formulas.  See the
> argument from authority in my previous messages.

Your argument from authority was flawed. I will reply in the other thread.

>>Bob Badour, you mentioned in this thread that you "feel
>>cheated that [your] education failed to teach [you] enough
>>useful statistics". I don't know how much time you have to
>>study these days but I would like to recommend Jaynes' book
>>and also for an introduction focusing on practical use:
>>
>>"Data Analysis: A Bayesian Tutorial" D. S. Sivia
>>
>>I think you will find that learning probability theory from
>>the Cox perspective will radically improve and simplify your
>>understanding of both statistics and probability theory. The
>>same advice goes for anyone out there in a similar situation.
>>Reading the first few chapters of both Sivia and Jaynes as
>>well as Jaynes' appendix "Other Approaches To Probability
>>Theory" makes for a great start.
>>
>>After reading those you will think "why the frak didn't they
>>teach me this in school."
>>
>>-- Keith --
>>
>>PS. Let me also take this opportunity to correct a typo in
>>my previous post before the VI has a mental orgasm.
>>
>>Keith H Duggar wrote:
>>
>>>No but you claimed "P(p1 and p2) is not equal P(p1)*P(p1)
>>>in general" which is of course pointing to the possibility
>>>of p1 and p2 being dependent which is of course equivalent
>>>to a conditional statement P(p1|p2) = P(p1).
>>
>>that should have been P(p1|p2) != P(p1).

> 
> That's assuming that P(p1|p2) even makes sense.  More general
> formulation of such independence is just P(p1 and p2) = P(p1)* P(p2).

The formulation is neither more general nor less general. It is, in fact, a simple substitution of the equation describing independence:

(1) P(p1|p2) = P(p1)

into the formula for conditional probability:

(2) P(p1 and p2) = P(p1|p2)*P(p2)

Substitute (1) into (2) gives P(p1 and p2) = P(p1)*P(p2) Received on Sat Jun 10 2006 - 23:01:46 CDT