Newborn infants have to learn the language and learning anything requires an ability to reason. The ability to reason exists prior to learning a language. Language is just visual scribbles and sounds, like most everything else, and we interpret our visual and auditory sensations individually — Harry Hindu

I agree that individually we are born with the ability to (pre-)reason and learn a language. I can't agree that language is just scribbles and sounds. Language is something like a set of conventions.

While the individual brain processes what it gets from that same person's sense-organs, it does so (in any higher, human sense) through and with inherited habits of using linguistic conventions.

Actions speak louder than words because actions are visual, like words, and can be interpreted, and provide more accurate information than words can. It's more difficult to lie with your actions than with your words. — Harry Hindu

I'm not sure about this. But I don't think lying is really the issue in the first place. Honest, earnest error is probably a larger concern. To be reasonable and scientific is something like an ethical ideal. While eschewing deceiving others is part of that, the less trivial task is eschewing self-deceit. This is where IMO the idea of peer review comes in. Science is a task for a community of inquirers aware of their idiosyncratic biases and blind-spots.

There seems to me something infinite about randomness. — Gregory

If you look into algorithmic information theory, you'll see randomness as irreducible. It has no useless space in it. It's thick. And a truly random (infinite) sequence contains an infinite amount of information (which can be thought of as an unpredictable string of yes/no answers to a countably infinite number of questions.)

I've read much of Fooled by Randomness. Taleb is great. I like that he programs simulations (and I'm quite fascinated by PRNGs and all that they can be used for.)

[/quote]

So is the act of observing and thinking about your own mental processes - a scientific act is private. Proof of one's conclusions to others comes later, but that is argumentative, not inquisitive. — Harry Hindu

I think I understand what you are saying, but IMV thinking itself is (counter-intuitively) not a private act. I say this because we think in and through a public language and through the 'lens' of an education. Also consider that any interest in trust seems to reference some reality that transcends the individual. The goal is true-for-anyone and not just true-for-me. To find these true-for-all propositions is also to work in a shared language. I do see that we can quietly talk to ourselves and have insights that lead scientific revolutions.

A person is not absolutely an individual. His thoughts are what he is "saying to himself," that is, is saying to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of time. When one reasons, it is that critical self that one is trying to persuade; and all thought whatsoever is a sign, and is mostly of the nature of language. The second thing to remember is that the man’s circle of society, (however widely or narrowly this phrase may be understood), is a sort of loosely compacted person, in some respects of higher rank than the person of an individual organism. It is these two things alone that render it possible for you—but only in the abstract, and in a Pickwickian sense,—to distinguish between absolute truth and what you do not doubt. — Peirce

https://arisbe.sitehost.iu.edu/menu/library/bycsp/whatis/whatpragis.htm

I agree. I don't see any way around type-I and type-II error. This is one reason I like to frame things practically. Let's say we are doing quality control on some product. At what point do we decide to reject the object? We know that an error is always possible, but we also don't want to ignore p-values and just guess.

We can generate completely deterministic sequences of numbers that satisfy every known statistical test for randomness. — fishfry

I agree here too. As we discussed earlier, we seem to have some intuition of perfect randomness (the ideal fair coin.) And our tests seem to be built on this intuition. But as you say, we have PRNGS (which I understand to be defined in terms of being actually deterministic), that pass such tests.

That's only because you're lumping all the "evenly spread" events together. There are far more of them. Whatever outcome you got was incredibly unlikely. The fact that it's a member of an arbitrarily large class of outcomes doesn't make any difference except psychologically. — fishfry

But what then do you make of testing the coin for fairness as in my reply to tim?

Let's consider a simpler example, so you can see where I am coming from.

Let's flip a coin ten times to test it for fairness and get HHHHHHHHHH.

If H_0: p= 0.5 and H_A: p != 0.5, then the p-value is 2/2^10 = 1/2^9 ~ 0.002.

Is this evidence against the fairness of the coin? If the coin is fair, the chance of such an extreme value is about 0.2%. Let's make this concrete: if you were thinking of using the coin for practical purposes, would you trust it?

IMO, the problem at hand is more mathematically complicated (with 10 categories) but subject to the same principle.

In null hypothesis significance testing, the p-value[note 1] is the probability of obtaining test results at least as extreme as the results actually observed, under the assumption that the null hypothesis is correct.[2][3] A very small p-value means that such an extreme observed outcome would be very unlikely under the null hypothesis. Reporting p-values of statistical tests is common practice in academic publications of many quantitative fields. Since the precise meaning of p-value is hard to grasp, misuse is widespread and has been a major topic in metascience.[4][5]
...
Null hypothesis testing is a reductio ad absurdum argument adapted to statistics. In essence, a claim is assumed valid if its counterclaim is highly implausible.
...
Thus, the only hypothesis that needs to be specified in this test and which embodies the counterclaim is referred to as the null hypothesis; that is, the hypothesis to be nullified. A result is said to be statistically significant if it allows us to reject the null hypothesis. The result, being statistically significant, was highly improbable if the null hypothesis is assumed to be true. A rejection of the null hypothesis implies that the correct hypothesis lies in the logical complement of the null hypothesis. — wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value
emphasis added

The possibility space includes the number 5555555555 and it being the first number displayed doesn't, in any way, aid us in deciding whether the machine is a true random number generator or not. — TheMadFool

I don't think it's that clear. While statistical hypothesis tests are never conclusive (because haunted by the possibility of type-I and type-II error, I think it's fair to say that lower p-values (if understood) are experienced as stronger evidence against the null hypothesis (in this case randomness.)

While each string of digits is equally likely, we can categorize strings by how spread out over the 10 categories they are. The more spread-out strings are more common and therefore more likely. The string is all 5s has only 9 other strings of similar extremity. That's a 1 in 10^9 chance of such a concentration, which is strong evidence against randomness.

We should keep in mind that pRNGs are a big part of modern technology and that there are lots of test. http://www-users.math.umn.edu/~garrett/students/reu/pRNGs.pdf

One can argue that no test is 'perfect,' but then we have to figure out what is meant by 'perfect.' In the same way there are some good definitions of randomness.

That's true, and that's a good point. Each string of ten digits is equally likely, but it's strange that we got such a monotonous sample, all in the same category of '5.' What was really needed in my first post was a goodness-of-fit test, though we don't have enough data to justify. Probably a simulation approach to getting a p-value would be appropriate.

EDIT:
At first I applied a GOF-test, but I ignored that I need more to data to justify using that test. My informal response is that there are only 10 strings as concentrated as 5555555555, and that is stronger intuitive evidence against randomness than 2343549094.

A quote from Nietzsche and 50¢ won't get you a cup of coffee. — Bitter Crank

:up:

We never observe minds in brains, like we do digesting in guts. Brains and minds are the same thing, just from different perspectives. Thinking that it's brains that are really "out there" is naive realism. — Harry Hindu

I understand the temptation to make this point, but consider this pronoun we. Perfectly private 'observation' is (or seems to be) scientifically irrelevant. What I'm questioning is this starting point of the private dream. This makes the brain a mere part of the dream, so then so is the dream a part of the dream. (?)

I'd refer to the emic-etic distinction.

When talking about the mind, we talk about the emic.
When talking about the brain, we talk about the etic. — baker

Thank you for linking to this distinction, it seems quite useful. :up:

…Emic knowledge and interpretations are those existing within a culture, that are ‘determined by local custom, meaning, and belief’ (Ager and Loughry, 2004: n.p.) and best described by a 'native' of the culture. Etic knowledge refers to generalizations about human behavior that are considered universally true, and commonly links cultural practices to factors of interest to the researcher, such as economic or ecological conditions, that cultural insiders may not consider very relevant (Morris et al., 1999). — from Wiki

I would want a big power trip before logging out. — FlaccidDoor

:up:

It makes sense to me to that this is what shooters are doing, going on a power trip, playing God, and (often) escaping into the grave from any consequences.

I also liked your description of the stresses of school, etc.

I see alot of people being unaware of the role of influence in their lives, "they" seem to live in a vaccum, not knowing that when they say "Jessica" they are citing Shakeaspeare, the one who discovered the name for the first time. This goes for everything we take for granted. We can't live in a vaccum, believing we invented this language, these philosophical problems, etc. I don't think it goes against individualism, because individualism can only survive in a very specific democratic eco-chamber, that's why we need to preserve it and community is fundamental. — WaterLungs

:up:

For whatever reason, the free will issue has never bothered me.I guess I'm a soft determinist. I think we can't help but enact our training. At the same time, I think we are too complex to predict in detail.

What I like most about pragmatism is the way it points out the smoke in what people say as they wander away from practical matters. For instance, wtf is free will, really? What do people mean? As far as I can make out, it involves something unpredictable in principle. This is like a ideal fair coin except that it can take responsibility, perhaps eternal responsibility, for its actions. Away from the religious baggage, I think it would just be easier to fallibly discuss difficult cases of assigning praise and blame.

I'm guessing he means constructive in the sense that, given any countable list of real numbers, one can construct a real number not on that list, from that list. This shows that every injection fails to be a surjection. (In the same way, Euclid gave a way to construct a prime not already on a list of prime numbers. )

There has to be a framework in which doubting gets its meaning. That framework allows doubting to take place, to gain a foothold. You have to at least be sure of the meaning of your words, otherwise what would it mean to doubt. Descartes didn't really doubt everything. He surely didn't doubt what it means to doubt.
...
Just as chess relies on the board and pieces in order to play the game. If you doubt the board and pieces, where do you go from there? You can't play the game.
...
The rules of language, or the rules of correct usage, tell us how we are to use these concepts (knowing and doubting). They're not created in a vacuum, but in a culture of correct usage. We can't just create our own uses, as many people do, and expect something coherent. — Sam26

:up:

In other words: I don't have the language, the language has me. And I am more within the language than the language is within me. To exist in a community where something like 'reality' makes sense in the first place is to already have learned this framework (to have learned to talk/think in terms of appearance/reality). With this in mind, there is a limit on how radical any facetious skepticism (that wants it articulate itself) can be. To speak at all seems to indicate an expectation that being understood is at least possible.

Another quote from C S P and the same essay seems to fit here (the new link includes a longer version.)
http://www.bocc.ubi.pt/pag/peirce-charles-fixation-belief.html

We are, doubtless, in the main logical animals, but we are not perfectly so. Most of us, for example, are naturally more sanguine and hopeful than logic would justify. We seem to be so constituted that in the absence of any facts to go upon we are happy and self-satisfied; so that the effect of experience is continually to contract our hopes and aspirations. Yet a lifetime of the application of this corrective does not usually eradicate our sanguine disposition. Where hope is unchecked by any experience, it is likely that our optimism is extravagant. Logicality in regard to practical matters is the most useful quality an animal can possess, and might, therefore, result from the action of natural selection; but outside of these it is probably of more advantage to the animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought. — C S P

Perhaps this quote explains why so much philosophy and religion is irrational. The farther we are from practical matter, the farther we are from any checks on the madness that is always with us. In defense of this madness (following C S P), we credit imagination as crucial for science. Is reason just madness tamed rather than extinguished?

Yes, I was trying to bring this intuition of the ideal coin into the conversation. Did we evolve so that this intuition was available? And: how does it connect to the larger conversation? Whether nature offers anything comparable is of course another important issue. (Does God play dice? Etc.)

Only by virtue of our ignorance of the physical determinants of the outcome. Else you must not believe in physics at the macroscopic level. — fishfry

Nature aside, what I'm trying to get at is the ideal, mathematical model. Specifically, we can think of a Bernoulli variable with p = 0.5. But even this is a formalism that aims at an notion. Actual coins are used as 'approximations' of the ideal coin, just as we settle for PRNGs.

What, conceptually, is probability? What is something being likely to happen? — denis yamunaque

Deep issue, and you've got some good answers already. I'll just introduce the theme of the theoretically fair coin. This is an ideal coin. It's the prototypical RNG (random number generator). Each time it's activated, it is just as likely to gives heads as tails (or 1 as 0, if you prefer to think of a random bit.) It has no memory, no anticipation. It's doesn't matter that the last 1000 flips were heads. The next flip is just as likely to be heads as tails. I don't know enough about modern physics to say whether anything in nature corresponds with it, but we seem to co-imagine it pretty well. Do we just have an intuition about RNGs that's hard to say more about?

"But the mere putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief. There must be a real and living doubt, and without this all discussion is idle." Pierced through my philosophical pose of someone who really questions, oh shit, I have some self-reflection to make... :lol: Thank you. — WaterLungs

That was my favorite quote perhaps! I'm glad you gave it a look and found the same focal point.

This quote also reminds me of the idea that philosophers solve public problems as a byproduct of solving personal problems. If I am genuinely troubled by an issue, I can't help but dwell on it, think about it, try to resolve it. When I do (if I do), then the solution will often work for others who are sufficiently similar to me. Does that sound reasonable to you?

You put your finger right on a nice issue. I think it would have been better if Peirce had said nothing individual (or individually human). The goal is something true for us and not just me, so perhaps it's more accurate to talk of checking with others and not with some paradoxical non-human stuff.

What I especially like is the portrait of doubt as a paralyzing, unpleasant state.

But it will only do so by creating a doubt in the place of that belief. With the doubt, therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it ends...

Some philosophers have imagined that to start an inquiry it was only necessary to utter a question whether orally or by setting it down upon paper, and have even recommended us to begin our studies with questioning everything! But the mere putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief. There must be a real and living doubt, and without this all discussion is idle.

It is a very common idea that a demonstration must rest on some ultimate and absolutely indubitable propositions. These, according to one school, are first principles of a general nature; according to another, are first sensations. But, in point of fact, an inquiry, to have that completely satisfactory result called demonstration, has only to start with propositions perfectly free from all actual doubt. If the premisses are not in fact doubted at all, they cannot be more satisfactory than they are. — C S P

This explains why a certain style of philosophy (popular on forums) leaves more practically minded people cold. They have no living or actual doubt about (for instance) the 'external world' or the 'wrongness' of various crimes. This is not to say that a whole, complacent culture can't be proven wrong or forced to change their beliefs at some point.

I agree that Chesterton is wrong, but then he's also fooling around.

Radical skepticism is something like a pose, IMO. Genuine doubt is paralyzing. Theoretical (facetious, insincere) doubt is a clever game.

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/peirce/peirce_print.pdf

Philosophy = ∞ — javi2541997

:up: