Probability, Truth and Flow Graph

Simplicity, Truth, and Probability

Simplicity has long been recognized as an apparent mark of truth in science, but it is difficult to explain why simplicity should be accorded such weight. This chapter examines some standard, statistical explanations of the role of simplicity in scientific method and argues that none of them explains, without circularity, how a reliance on simplicity could be conducive to finding true models or...

Truth, Probability, and Frameworks

John W. McArthur, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Guido SchmidtTraub Amir Attaran’s Policy Forum [1] raises important points on the poor quality of data for some indicators used to measure progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but, sadly, uses these fi ndings to draw the wrong conclusions. The evidence he presents on a small number of indicators is partial, and does not justify his conclusion ...

Truthier Than Thou: Truth, Supertruth and Probability of Truth

Different formal tools are useful for different purposes. For example, when it comes to modelling degrees of belief, probability theory is a better tool than classical logic; when it comes to modelling the truth of mathematical claims, classical logic is a better tool than probability theory. In this paper I focus on a widely used formal tool and argue that it does not provide a good model of a...

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Truth and probability in evolutionary games

This paper concerns two composite Lewis-Skyrms signaling games. Each consists in a base game that evolves a language descriptive of nature and a metagame that coevolves a language descriptive of the base game and its evolving language. The first composite game shows how a pragmatic notion of truth might coevolve with a simple descriptive language. The second shows how a pragmatic notion of prob...