Greetings all, This coming Monday, 1.00-2.30 in the philosophy common room Jenann Ismael, USyd, will talk to us about "Likelihood Reasoning and Theory Choice"
Abstract. The Law of Likelihood says that given a choice between a pair of theories H1 and H2 compatible with a body E of evidence, we should choose the one that assigns the E a higher probability. We all use likelihood reasoning informally in everyday contexts and it is employed routinely in scientific inferences, but most people cant say whether and why it is valid, and it hasnt been given the attention it deserves in connection with some well-known problems about theory choice in fundamental physics. Here, I want to look at likelihood reasoning and its potential role in theory choice. In my view, the Law of Likelihood is the great white hope for a non-subjectivist, evidentially grounded account of theory choice in physics. Its proper application, however, is subtle, and to get a proper understanding of the complexities, I look at some difficult cases; e.g., the status of the low entropy boundary condition in Statistical Mechanics, Everettian Interpretation of quantum mechanics. See you all there... _______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list [email protected] List Info: http://lists.arts.usyd.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/sydphil NEW LIST ARCHIVE: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
