Freethought & Rationalism Archive

RufusAtticus · 12-12-2002, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Clutch:
<strong>I think that what's motivating wade's claim is that we wouldn't count something as a trend, strictu dictu, unless it defied our prior expectations given the assumption of randomness. E.g., since we expect that a truly random long series of coin tosses will produce some sustained strings of consecutive heads and consecutive tails, we don't call those trends when we see them.

So that makes randomness trendless by definition, if that's what was meant.
</strong>

If we were talking about a sequence of events, then it would be trendless if there was no correlation between individuals elements of the sequence, i.e. the P{ X(t) == i } does not depend on X(t-1), X(t-2), . . . .

However, this causes a problem. How large must our sequence be or how many sequence do we need to detect any trends? And if we do detect a trend, how do we determine if it is significant or a by-product of our sampling procedure?

Answering such questions are what keeps people like me in buisness.

~~RvFvS~~

crocodile deathroll · 12-12-2002, 05:49 PM

It is only possible for us to observe the universe from a vantage point of successful outcomes.

It is impossible for a simple non-conscious universe to observe itself. But that does not mean simple non-conscious universes do not exist.

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12-12-2002, 05:49 PM	#22
crocodile deathroll Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Darwin Posts: 1,466	It is only possible for us to observe the universe from a vantage point of successful outcomes. It is impossible for a simple non-conscious universe to observe itself. But that does not mean simple non-conscious universes do not exist.

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