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Equipossibility
Equipossibility is a philosophical concept in possibility theory that is a precursor to the notion of equiprobability in probability theory. It is used to distinguish what ''can'' occur in a probability experiment. For example, it is the difference between viewing the possible results of rolling a six sided dice as rather than . The former (equipossible) set contains equally possible alternatives, while the latter does not because there are five times as many alternatives inherent in 'not 6' as in 6. This is true even if the die is biased so that 6 and 'not 6' are equally likely to occur (equiprobability). The Principle of Indifference of Laplace states that equipossible alternatives may be accorded equal probabilities if nothing more is known about the underlying probability distribution. However, it is a matter of contention whether the concept of equipossibility, also called equispecificity (from equispecific), can truly be distinguished from the concept of equiprobability. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Principle Of Indifference
The principle of indifference (also called principle of insufficient reason) is a rule for assigning epistemic probabilities. The principle of indifference states that in the absence of any relevant evidence, agents should distribute their credence (or 'degrees of belief') equally among all the possible outcomes under consideration. In Bayesian probability, this is the simplest non-informative prior. The principle of indifference is meaningless under the frequency interpretation of probability, in which probabilities are relative frequencies rather than degrees of belief in uncertain propositions, conditional upon state information. Examples The textbook examples for the application of the principle of indifference are coins, dice, and cards. In a macroscopic system, at least, it must be assumed that the physical laws that govern the system are not known well enough to predict the outcome. As observed some centuries ago by John Arbuthnot (in the preface of ''Of the Laws of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras ( BCE), although this theory is disputed by some. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. in . Historically, ''philosophy'' encompassed all bodies of knowledge and a practitioner was known as a ''philosopher''."The English word "philosophy" is first attested to , meaning "knowledge, body of knowledge." "natural philosophy," which began as a discipline in ancient India and Ancient Greece, encompasses astronomy, medicine, and physics. For example, Newton's 1687 ''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'' later became classified as a book of physics. In the 19th century, the growth of modern research universiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Possibility Theory
Possibility theory is a mathematical theory for dealing with certain types of uncertainty and is an alternative to probability theory. It uses measures of possibility and necessity between 0 and 1, ranging from impossible to possible and unnecessary to necessary, respectively. Professor Lotfi Zadeh first introduced possibility theory in 1978 as an extension of his theory of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic. Didier Dubois and Henri Prade further contributed to its development. Earlier in the 1950s, economist G. L. S. Shackle proposed the min/max algebra to describe degrees of potential surprise. Formalization of possibility For simplicity, assume that the universe of discourse Ω is a finite set. A possibility measure is a function \operatorname from 2^\Omega to , 1such that: :Axiom 1: \operatorname(\varnothing) = 0 :Axiom 2: \operatorname(\Omega) = 1 :Axiom 3: \operatorname(U \cup V) = \max \left( \operatorname(U), \operatorname(V) \right) for any disjoint subsets U and V. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equiprobability
Equiprobability is a property for a collection of events that each have the same probability of occurring. In statistics and probability theory it is applied in the discrete uniform distribution and the equidistribution theorem for rational numbers. If there are n events under consideration, the probability of each occurring is \frac. In philosophy it corresponds to a concept that allows one to assign equal probabilities to outcomes when they are judged to be equipossible or to be "equally likely" in some sense. The best-known formulation of the rule is Laplace's principle of indifference (or ''principle of insufficient reason''), which states that, when "we have no other information than" that exactly N mutually exclusive events can occur, we are justified in assigning each the probability \frac. This subjective assignment of probabilities is especially justified for situations such as rolling dice and lotteries since these experiments carry a symmetry structure, and one's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Probability Theory
Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set of axioms. Typically these axioms formalise probability in terms of a probability space, which assigns a measure taking values between 0 and 1, termed the probability measure, to a set of outcomes called the sample space. Any specified subset of the sample space is called an event. Central subjects in probability theory include discrete and continuous random variables, probability distributions, and stochastic processes (which provide mathematical abstractions of non-deterministic or uncertain processes or measured quantities that may either be single occurrences or evolve over time in a random fashion). Although it is not possible to perfectly predict random events, much can be said about their behavior. Two major results in probability ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dice
Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing games, and games of chance. A traditional die is a cube with each of its six faces marked with a different number of dots ( pips) from one to six. When thrown or rolled, the die comes to rest showing a random integer from one to six on its upper surface, with each value being equally likely. Dice may also have polyhedral or irregular shapes, may have faces marked with numerals or symbols instead of pips and may have their numbers carved out from the material of the dice instead of marked on it. Loaded dice are designed to favor some results over others for cheating or entertainment. History Dice have been used since before recorded history, and it is uncertain where they originated. It is theorized that dice developed from the practice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laplace
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume ''Mécanique céleste'' (''Celestial Mechanics'') (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. In statistics, the Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace. Laplace formulated Laplace's equation, and pioneered the Laplace transform which appears in many branches of mathematical physics, a field that he took a leading role in forming. The Laplacian differential operator, widely used in mathematics, is also named after him. He restated and developed the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the Solar System and was one of the first scientists to suggest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Probability Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, a probability distribution is the mathematical function that gives the probabilities of occurrence of different possible outcomes for an experiment. It is a mathematical description of a random phenomenon in terms of its sample space and the probabilities of events (subsets of the sample space). For instance, if is used to denote the outcome of a coin toss ("the experiment"), then the probability distribution of would take the value 0.5 (1 in 2 or 1/2) for , and 0.5 for (assuming that the coin is fair). Examples of random phenomena include the weather conditions at some future date, the height of a randomly selected person, the fraction of male students in a school, the results of a survey to be conducted, etc. Introduction A probability distribution is a mathematical description of the probabilities of events, subsets of the sample space. The sample space, often denoted by \Omega, is the set of all possible outcomes of a random phe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bayesian Inference
Bayesian inference is a method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available. Bayesian inference is an important technique in statistics, and especially in mathematical statistics. Bayesian updating is particularly important in the dynamic analysis of a sequence of data. Bayesian inference has found application in a wide range of activities, including science, engineering, philosophy, medicine, sport, and law. In the philosophy of decision theory, Bayesian inference is closely related to subjective probability, often called "Bayesian probability". Introduction to Bayes' rule Formal explanation Bayesian inference derives the posterior probability as a consequence of two antecedents: a prior probability and a "likelihood function" derived from a statistical model for the observed data. Bayesian inference computes the posterior probability according to Bayes' theorem: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transformation Group
In mathematics, the automorphism group of an object ''X'' is the group consisting of automorphisms of ''X'' under composition of morphisms. For example, if ''X'' is a finite-dimensional vector space, then the automorphism group of ''X'' is the group of invertible linear transformations from ''X'' to itself (the general linear group of ''X''). If instead ''X'' is a group, then its automorphism group \operatorname(X) is the group consisting of all group automorphisms of ''X''. Especially in geometric contexts, an automorphism group is also called a symmetry group. A subgroup of an automorphism group is sometimes called a transformation group. Automorphism groups are studied in a general way in the field of category theory. Examples If ''X'' is a set with no additional structure, then any bijection from ''X'' to itself is an automorphism, and hence the automorphism group of ''X'' in this case is precisely the symmetric group of ''X''. If the set ''X'' has additional structur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haar Measure
In mathematical analysis, the Haar measure assigns an "invariant volume" to subsets of locally compact topological groups, consequently defining an integral for functions on those groups. This measure was introduced by Alfréd Haar in 1933, though its special case for Lie groups had been introduced by Adolf Hurwitz in 1897 under the name "invariant integral". Haar measures are used in many parts of analysis, number theory, group theory, representation theory, statistics, probability theory, and ergodic theory. Preliminaries Let (G, \cdot) be a locally compact Hausdorff topological group. The \sigma-algebra generated by all open subsets of G is called the Borel algebra. An element of the Borel algebra is called a Borel set. If g is an element of G and S is a subset of G, then we define the left and right translates of S by ''g'' as follows: * Left translate: g S = \. * Right translate: S g = \. Left and right translates map Borel sets onto Borel sets. A measure \mu on th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Principle Of Transformation Groups
The principle of transformation groups is a rule for assigning ''epistemic'' probabilities in a statistical inference problem. It was first suggested by Edwin T. Jaynes and can be seen as a generalisation of the principle of indifference. This can be seen as a method to create ''objective ignorance probabilities'' in the sense that two people who apply the principle and are confronted with the same information will assign the same probabilities. Motivation and description of the method The method is motivated by the following normative principle, or desideratum: ''In two problems where we have the same prior information we should assign the same prior probabilities'' The method then comes about from "transforming" a given problem into an equivalent one. This method has close connections with group theory, and to a large extent is about finding symmetry in a given problem, and then exploiting this symmetry to assign prior probabilities. In problems with discrete variables (e. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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