Arlo,
You are bit by bit dragging me out on thin ice here (statistics and probability) which is fine, so long as you are prepared to rescue me. I think, as a matter of practice, that the strength of an inference is determined a priori when you define your population and select your sample size. Does that sound right? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 10:18 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why I was wrong about the nuclear option The adjective "weak" seems to relate to how much money you should be willing to bet on it. In this case, with the sample size at one, and the population at billions, Peirce would advise you to bet very little if anything, until you had a much larger sample. So is strength of an inference something we can only determine a posteriori? Or can we infer it based off previous inferences? I agree with you that there are traps for the young lurking in the enthusiasm and nostalgia with which the elderly often approach guiding the young. Even worse than "you can do anything you can put your mind to" is "all I want is for you to be happy." Both set one up for blaming the victim when life screws one over, which it inevitably will. I do believe that "being happy" is a behavior and a skill that comes only to those who work at it, but alas, I see no evidence that it comes to everybody who works at it. I think probably the only advice which does not make irresponsible assumptions is "do stuff; try it, you will like it", which is not very helpful. So any more complex advice is valuable but only if treated skeptically, in the positive sense of that word, rather than merely taken to heart. No value comes to a child from blaming his or her parents. I would furthermore posit that blame is a valueless activity much akin to making decisions based on what is moral. It leads to misunderstanding a system much more often than it aids the thinker, and understanding a [social, physical, economic] system to some critical degree is vital in avoiding bad experiences in the future. New-Clear options? In what context? Somebody pointed out that society had moved forward because in the recent debate <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option> not just a few but many politicians succeeded in not pronouncing it "new-queue-lur". Do any of you know about grue and green. I know that when it is light out one is liable to be eaten by a bleen. -Arlo
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