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Dan Hedlin: Philosophy of probability

Time: Wed 2018-02-21 13.00 - 14.00

Location: Room B705, Department of Statistics, Stockholm University

Participating: Dan Hedlin, Department of Statistics

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Abstract: What do we mean when we say ‘probability’, really? What is this entity we call probability? Consider a derelict bridge that due to poor maintenance will fall down any day. Eventually it does fall down. It was an accident waiting to happen. How can we view the ‘probability’ that a unique bridge may fall down due to non-existent maintenance? Or a new-born child in Sweden, what is the probability that this child dies before her or his first birthday? Is it simply the empirical average, 2.1 per 1000?

I shall give a brief introduction to some philosophical views on the concept of probability. The three most well-known are the classical, frequentist and the subjective interpretations of probability, all of which have some issues associated with them. There are interesting things about these; for example, a frequentist probability has some degree of subjective decision-making in it, and you can actually make a subjective probability less subjective, this in an ‘objective’ way.