....Oh.
Well, thanks Owen, Swimmy. I now understand Bayes Theorem significantly more than I did a half hour ago. :)
TheatreAddict
Karma: 89
Thanks. I’m pretty sure I understand now. Although I’m not sure why I get the correct answer when I’m working with the actual numbers and not percentages when I do the math wrong.
But when I do the math like you wrote, I get the right answer for the precentages. So I get that part. But aren’t I ignoring the base rate in the actual numbers one? Or no?
Trouble with Bayes Theorem? (The actual math is confusing)
Yes.
Whoever thumbed up my comment about not understanding.… Why?
XD If someone doesn’t understand something, I’m not going to slap them on the back and tell them “Good job.”
Update:
I confronted him with many of these arguments.
He still expects that people will exist in the future.
I think I’ve figured it out. This is what is wrong with his belief.
It doesn’t pay rent.
Even if he’s right, and people stop existing when we stop percieving them, it still won’t change how we behave, or what we’re expecting to happen. He expects to see his friends later, he just says he can’t prove they exist at the moment. (I asked him about memories, he said that we still have memories of dead people, are they alive?)
It’s not falsifiable. It doesn’t constrain experience, I can’t use this new idea as a model for future information. It’s utterly useless because it permits anything to happen.
When I think about it, it’s like the tree dropping in the forest analogy. We’re not anticipating different experiences. We both expect to see our mothers later. And we can both agree that we cannot percieve people when they aren’t in front of us.
He’s just choosing a rather complicated way to state the obvious. At least this is what I’m getting.
Am I right, guys?
Thank you (and others who have posted) for helping me with this silly argument.
:) I’ll let you know how things turn out. He’s quite clever at thinking on the spot.
I’ve already read that, and I still don’t understand.
Subjective Realities
Oh, well… Not that I’d.. well, yeah, I’d probably feel a bit awkward. Still, I plan on going to Chicago sometime in the next year, do teenagers show up at the Chicago one?
Ehh, I don’t mind the exaggeration and oversimplification.. If it wasn’t simplified, I probably wouldn’t understand it. :3
Edit: I’ve read most of the sequence, Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions.
So.. is this pretty much a result of our human brains wanting to classify something? Like, if something doesn’t necessarily fit into a box that we can neatly file away, our brains puzzle where to classify it, when actually it is its own classification… if that makes sense?
As a student, I can definitely see the benefit of not having knowledge just, as you said, handed to me on a silver platter. I’d actually much rather be challenged to attempt to figure out something for myself instead of simply being told about it. It honestly makes science rather dull, simply because I have a horrid teacher who doesn’t even understand the material she teaches. Hopefully next year I’ll have a competant teacher for physics.
It’s alright. I’m rather new to the site, so would you happen to know if there are ever events or meeting in Michigan? And how old are the people who usually go? Do teens ever show up?
I think I just thought of an insanely over-simplified analogy.
Say I’m not invited to my best friend’s sleepover and I don’t understand why. I call her, and the answer she gives me is: “It’s complicated.”
The situation might indeed be complicated, but the word complicated is just a fake explanation… :D Amiright, guys?
Thank you for clearing that up for me.
So.. How precisely would I go about doing this? I mean, let’s say I really thought that phlogiston was the reason fire was hot and bright when it burns. Something that today, we know to be untrue. But if I really thought it was true, and I decided to test my hypothesis, how would I go about proving it false?
What I think the point is about, is that if I already believe that phlogiston was the reason fire is hot and bright, and I observe fire being both hot and bright, then I think this proves that phlogiston is the reason fire is hot and bright. When actually, that’s pointless because I’d have to prove that phlogiston is indeed the reason fire is hot and bright, not the other way around. Am I right? Or did I just end up confusing myself even more, because I’m not entirely sure that what I said is correct and/or makes any sense. O_o
Thanks. :3
I’m awfully glad to here that, I’m not a big fan of percentages… Real numbers just come easier to me, I suppose.
Once I figure out the formulat itself, then I feel comfortable using a calculator, but I hate using a calculator if I don’t understand the mental math to begin with.