What do you make of Jaynes’ observation that plausible inference is concerned with logical connections, and must be carefully distinguished from physical causation?
His example of the rain at 10:30 implying clouds at 10:15 with any physical causation going in the other direction is clear. And I appreciate his polemic that limiting yourself to reasoning based upon physical cause and effect is dull and impractical. He was a physicist and the ideal of physicists is to discover previously unknown natural laws of cause and effect, which made him a bit eccentric within his own community and so we get the tone in there of pleading. It is a minor distraction in the midst of great material.
57 participants should make for a sustained critical mass even with heavy attrition.
His example of the rain at 10:30 implying clouds at 10:15 with any physical causation going in the other direction is clear. And I appreciate his polemic that limiting yourself to reasoning based upon physical cause and effect is dull and impractical. He was a physicist and the ideal of physicists is to discover previously unknown natural laws of cause and effect, which made him a bit eccentric within his own community and so we get the tone in there of pleading. It is a minor distraction in the midst of great material.
57 participants should make for a sustained critical mass even with heavy attrition.