Current Events > Do you think probability only exists as a consequence of imperfect knowledge?

(+) Yeah! (+)

If people had a different kind of intellect maybe everything we think of would be an absolute. I wonder what that culture would be like.

How so? If someone else rolls a die, is it all of a sudden only going to be one number?

Squall28 posted...

How so? If someone else rolls a die, is it all of a sudden only going to be one number?

Yes, exactly

By imperfect knowledge, do you mean like probability wouldn't exist if we knew exactly how the die fell at which angle and force and that we would be able to know the number it lands on by the way it should bounce plus other factors?

Jupiter posted...

By imperfect knowledge, do you mean like probability wouldn't exist if we knew exactly how the die fell at which angle and force and that we would be able to know the number it lands on by the way it should bounce plus other factors?

In the same way you don't have to abandon 2 dimensional concepts as a 3 dimensional being I don't think all probabilities would have to be reduced to 1, but I think it would be closer to something like the 30% probability can be realized every time and so can the other involved probabilities.

Idk, I'm really bad at this stuff.

Anyway, a dice is actually a bad measure of probability because in order to get the result you have to roll it, which is a guaranteed event. It might be hard to accept this but it's true. The probability of something happening given nothing else changes is entirely different.

These kinds of discussions are super interesting. I'd recommend the work of Philosopher/Psychologist William James, especially the essay The Dilemma of Determinism. Doesn't directly answer your question but there are related questions concerning the nature of potentialities, time and space.

Joelypoely posted...

These kinds of discussions are super interesting. I'd recommend the work of Philosopher/Psychologist William James, especially the essay The Dilemma of Determinism. Doesn't directly answer your question but there are related questions concerning the nature of potentialities, time and space.

I'll check it our rn

Imagine the odds of hitting a deer on your drive home. You're going whatever speed. There is a deer travelling in a certain direction who will inevitably enter the roadway at an exact time. Your reaction time and your vehicle's braking ability are what ever they are. There is no % chance of you hitting the deer, there are simply multiple factors that determine whether you will or not. We don't know all of those factors, so our brains view it as probability.

Maybe weather is a better example. There is no 80% chance of rain. There are clouds that will drop some water at specific times, and they will be over a certain area. The factors that decide this are already there. We just can't predict the exact details with total accuracy.

MisterPengy posted...

Imagine the odds of hitting a deer on your drive home. You're going whatever speed. There is a deer travelling in a certain direction who will inevitably enter the roadway at an exact time. Your reaction time and your vehicle's braking ability are what ever they are. There is no % chance of you hitting the deer, there are simply multiple factors that determine whether you will or not. We don't know all of those factors, so our brains view it as probability.

Maybe weather is a better example. There is no 80% chance of rain. There are clouds that will drop some water at specific times, and they will be over a certain area. The factors that decide this are already there. We just can't predict the exact details with total accuracy.

This is what I had in mind...

To many variables to predict any series of events with a 100% accuracy. Maybe in a controlled environment but at a universal scale way to many unknowns.

Supersex420 posted...

This is what I had in mind...

With enough knowledge, no randomness or chance truly exists. What are the odds I would have been born with a gene for brown hair? There are no odds. It has been determined since the beginning of the universe. The conditions to create life on this exact planet began when whatever happened that created our universe. The evolution of humans was decided by so many factors we may not understand, but it was inevitable. Perhaps there was a fight between some major common ancestor and a member of a different species - The outcome of that fight was already determined by the abilities and physical capabilities of both participants.

The only thing that really throws this all off is human will. What if George Washington said Eh fuck it, I wanna move back to England? Maybe my ancestors would have never emigrated to the United States, and I would not exist. But you could also argue that George Washington did not make any decisions - His brain worked the way it did because of so many factors outside of our understanding. He was inevitably going to do or not do what ever he did or did not do.

I sometimes have similar wonderings over the idea of "cause," which seems to me a product of our very limited intellectual faculties.

apocalyptic_4 posted...

To many variables to predict any series of events with a 100% accuracy. Maybe in a controlled environment but at a universal scale way to many unknowns.

That's the thing, we can't predict the out come. But the out come is already pre-determined. It's going to unfold a certain way.

Even the events that led me to be awake at this time, and to choose to browse Gamefaqs.gamespot.com at the exact time of this thread being up, has been inevitable since the dawn of time. Maybe even before that.

Quantum physics tells us that subatomic particles behave in a truly unpredictable way. It is impossible to know both the position and momentum of an electron simultaneously, for example. As you get closer to knowing one, you know less about the other. They both exist in a probability space.

MisterPengy posted...

That's the thing, we can't predict the out come. But the out come is already pre-determined. It's going to unfold a certain way.

Even the events that led me to be awake at this time, and to choose to browse Gamefaqs.gamespot.com at the exact time of this thread being up, has been inevitable since the dawn of time. Maybe even before that.

I disagree, I think if the world were actually like this then there would only be one solution for everything.

There is never going to a be a point in which we can determine another creatures actions, therefore the law of Chaos will always prevail. That deer could jump out in front of you car, or choose to run back in the woods. No amount if knowledge or information could every allow you to know.

Embrace the Chaos, and the Chaos will embrace you.

Speaking as a physics student, probability is an intrinsic part of how the mathematics of quantum mechanics functions and, therefore, an intrinsic part of how reality is.

The idea of Imperfect knowledge has been floated in the form of so called hidden variable theories, but, without getting into too much tedious mathematical rigor, there has been an inequality developed which mathematically suggests that if a classical esque theory were able to account for odd concepts such as the entanglement of particles without needing to consult probability, it would come at the expense of suddenly allowing information to arbitrarily decide when it wants to surpass the speed of light, which, when you get down to it, is basically just kicking the can down the road.

On a more philosophical note, and, again, saying this as a physics student, the idea of absolute certainty in the universe fucking terrifies me.

Even when you know all the numbers going in, chaos still happens for most of those numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_map

Lokison posted...

There is never going to a be a point in which we can determine another creatures actions, therefore the law of Chaos will always prevail. That deer could jump out in front of you car, or choose to run back in the woods. No amount if knowledge or information could every allow you to know.

Embrace the Chaos, and the Chaos will embrace you.

Maybe, maybe a good sense for it is conditions sensitivity