FWIW plausible is actually ambiguous to me. One sense means, “this is sort of likely; less likely than mainline, but worth tracking as a hypothesis, though maybe I won’t pay much attention to it except now that you bring it up”, or something. This would probably be more likely than something called “possible” (since if it were likely or plausible you probably would have called it such). The other sense means “this seems like it *might be possible*, given that I haven’t even thought about it enough to check that it’s remotely meaningful or logically consistent, let alone likely or worth tracking, but I don’t immediately see a glaring inconsistency / I have some sense of what that would look like / can’t immediately rule that out”. The second sense could imply the thing is *less* likely than if it were called “possible”, since it means “might be possible, might not”, though model uncertainty might in some contexts mean that something that’s plausible_2 is more likely than something you called definitely possible.
I’m a native English speaker, and I think of ‘plausible’ as connoting higher probability than ‘possible’ - I think I’d use it to mean something like ‘not totally crazy’.
I think if I have a space of hypotheses, I’ll label ‘probable’ the ones that have >50% probability, and ‘plausible’ the ones that are clearly in the running to become ‘probable’. The plausible options are the ‘contenders for probableness’; they’re competitive hypotheses.
E.g., if I’m drawing numbered balls from an urn at random, and there are one hundred balls, then it’s ‘plausible’ I could draw ball #23 even though it’s only 1% likely, because 1% is pretty good when none of the other atomic hypotheses are higher than 1%.
On the other hand, if I have 33 cyan balls in an urn, 33 magenta balls, 33 yellow balls, and 1 black ball, then I wouldn’t normally say ‘it’s plausible that I’ll draw a black ball’, because I’m partitioning the balls by color and ‘black’ isn’t one of the main contender colors.
See this is exactly the situation where I would say ‘plausible.’ To me ‘plausible’ implies a soon-to-be-followed ‘but’: “It is plausible that I would draw a black ball, but it is unlikely.” It is nearly synonymous with ‘possible’ in my mind.
Native speaker, and my understanding of ‘plausible’ agrees 100% with Kaj. It’s about the lowest possible assessment you can give, while still admitting that it is a possible hypothesis. I believe this is because under normal circumstances you would use literally any other word to give a more charitable assessment, if you wanted. E.g. you could say it is ‘likely’ (but you didn’t), or you could say it is ‘valid’ (which in non-technical English tends to connote some sort of likelihood), etc.
If I come at you with some argument or theory, and you reply “well, I guess that’s plausible” I take the hint that you are actually ending the conversation out of disinterest. You are conceding that it is technically plausible, maybe, but you don’t think it is likely nor even worthy enough to take your time debating.
I’m a non-native speaker, but to me both “possible” and “valid” connote higher probability than “plausible”.
non-native, to me possible is “technically possible, but not necessarily probable”, while plausible is “possible and slightly probable”.
! Woah!!
I’m a native speaker and I agree with Kaj about the connotations, and use “plausible” to mean roughly the same thing as habryka is.
Woah! Maybe I’m the crazy one! :o
(I would still predict ‘no’, but the possibility has become way more likely for me.)
FWIW plausible is actually ambiguous to me. One sense means, “this is sort of likely; less likely than mainline, but worth tracking as a hypothesis, though maybe I won’t pay much attention to it except now that you bring it up”, or something. This would probably be more likely than something called “possible” (since if it were likely or plausible you probably would have called it such). The other sense means “this seems like it *might be possible*, given that I haven’t even thought about it enough to check that it’s remotely meaningful or logically consistent, let alone likely or worth tracking, but I don’t immediately see a glaring inconsistency / I have some sense of what that would look like / can’t immediately rule that out”. The second sense could imply the thing is *less* likely than if it were called “possible”, since it means “might be possible, might not”, though model uncertainty might in some contexts mean that something that’s plausible_2 is more likely than something you called definitely possible.
Yeah, I think that’s a more complete view of its meaning.
I’m a native English speaker, and I think of ‘plausible’ as connoting higher probability than ‘possible’ - I think I’d use it to mean something like ‘not totally crazy’.
(I think this is how I use it)
I think if I have a space of hypotheses, I’ll label ‘probable’ the ones that have >50% probability, and ‘plausible’ the ones that are clearly in the running to become ‘probable’. The plausible options are the ‘contenders for probableness’; they’re competitive hypotheses.
E.g., if I’m drawing numbered balls from an urn at random, and there are one hundred balls, then it’s ‘plausible’ I could draw ball #23 even though it’s only 1% likely, because 1% is pretty good when none of the other atomic hypotheses are higher than 1%.
On the other hand, if I have 33 cyan balls in an urn, 33 magenta balls, 33 yellow balls, and 1 black ball, then I wouldn’t normally say ‘it’s plausible that I’ll draw a black ball’, because I’m partitioning the balls by color and ‘black’ isn’t one of the main contender colors.
See this is exactly the situation where I would say ‘plausible.’ To me ‘plausible’ implies a soon-to-be-followed ‘but’: “It is plausible that I would draw a black ball, but it is unlikely.” It is nearly synonymous with ‘possible’ in my mind.
Where/when did you guys learn to speak English at (I’m wondering if this is regional/generational)? I grew up in the American Midwest and am 22.
Native speaker, and my understanding of ‘plausible’ agrees 100% with Kaj. It’s about the lowest possible assessment you can give, while still admitting that it is a possible hypothesis. I believe this is because under normal circumstances you would use literally any other word to give a more charitable assessment, if you wanted. E.g. you could say it is ‘likely’ (but you didn’t), or you could say it is ‘valid’ (which in non-technical English tends to connote some sort of likelihood), etc.
If I come at you with some argument or theory, and you reply “well, I guess that’s plausible” I take the hint that you are actually ending the conversation out of disinterest. You are conceding that it is technically plausible, maybe, but you don’t think it is likely nor even worthy enough to take your time debating.