Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!utcsri!utegc!utai!garfield!dalcs!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rlgvax!cliff From: cliff@rlgvax.UUCP Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: The nature of knowledge (probabilities) Message-ID: <556@rlgvax.UUCP> Date: Tue, 21-Jul-87 11:11:36 EDT Article-I.D.: rlgvax.556 Posted: Tue Jul 21 11:11:36 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 23-Jul-87 01:37:51 EDT References: <3587e521.44e6@apollo.uucp> <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU> <64@thirdi.UUCP> Organization: Computer Consoles Inc, Reston VA Lines: 31 Keywords: knowledge belief truth certainty In article <64@thirdi.UUCP>, sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes: > In article <2099@mulga.oz> lee@mulga.UUCP (Lee Naish) writes: > >Suppose each page of the book was simply a list of 100 numbers > >which (should) add up to 1000. Suppose also that the book source > >was on-line and with the appropriate tools all the numbers added > >by the computer and the result was 349999. The probability of there > >being an error is extremely high (say 0.999). I didn't see the original posting, so perhaps I'm missing something. But if they are *supposed* to add up to 350000, then (if we trust our automated summation) it is *certain* that if instead they add up to 34999, then there is an error *somewhere*. Therefore the probability of there being an error *somehwere in the book* is 1, not .999. > >What do you believe is > >the probability of an error on any given page? If you say 1/350 then > >the probability of an error in the book should be, according to > >simple probability theory, 1-(349/350)^350 = 0.63. If you say 10/350 > >(or whatever is needed to get the 0.999 figure) then the expected > >number of errors greatly increases (which I think is unreasonable). What about multiple offsetting errors on different pages (e.g. p. 10 adds up to 1002, p. 11 to 999, all others correct)? I don't think that there's any basis to make any other statementes besides Pr(error somewhere in book)=1. -- O-----------------------------------------------------------------------> | Cliff Joslyn, Computer Consoles Inc., Reston, Virgnia, but my opinions. | UUCP: ..!seismo!rlgvax!cliff V All the world is biscuit shaped