Meetup : West LA Meetup: What are the odds?

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA Meetup: What are the odds?

WHEN: 02 October 2013 07:00:00AM (-0700)

WHERE: 10850 West Pico Blvd, Suite 312, Los Angeles, CA, 90064

When: 7:00pm Wednesday, October 2nd.

Where: The Westside Tavern in the upstairs Wine Bar (all ages welcome), located inside the Westside Pavillion on the second floor, right by the movie theaters. The entrance sign says “Lounge”.

Parking is free for 3 hours.

Discussion:

No prior knowledge of or exposure to Less Wrong is necessary; this will be generally accessible and useful to everyone who values thinking for themselves. There will be open general conversation until 7:30, and that’s always a lot of good, fun, intelligent discussion!

There will be a probably whiteboard with Bayes’ Theorem written on it.

This Wednesday, we will try to define “probability.” (Spoiler: It is hard. We will fail.) We will discuss what we mean, or think we mean, and what we think other people mean by the word probability. We will look at the mathematical properties of probabilities, and (without actually doing the measure theory) try to understand just how much very weird math goes into defining the seemingly simple concept of probability. We will discuss different interpretations of how probabilities apply to the real world, such as frequentist and Bayesian interpretations. There many more questions to be answered, even after we hit the “Bayesian” applause light.