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From: jim@ism780.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Coin Flips - (nf)
Message-ID: <189@ism780.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-May-84 00:23:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780.189
Posted: Mon May 21 00:23:00 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 22-May-84 07:44:19 EDT
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#R:allegra:-248100:ism780:20300002:000:878
ism780!jim    May 19 21:49:00 1984

> Bayesian statistics deals with the problem more consistently (in my
> opinion), but has bizarre philosophical implications.  A Bayesian
> believes that human knowledge is described by probability
> distributions.  That is, probability is subjective, how strongly you
> believe something will happen.

I don' find the implications bizarre at all.  It seems clear to me that
probability is a measure of lack of knowledge; the probability that heads
shows on coin which I have flipped but am covering is very different than
the probability once I reveal it.  And if I have flipped it a million times
beforehand to determine its bias, or have loaded it somehow, then the
probability *for me* is different than what it is for someone else,
and for us to give the same answer to the question "what is P(heads)"
would be bizarre indeed.

-- Jim Balter, INTERACTIVE Systems (ima!jim)