LESSWRONG
LW

Wikitags

Bayesian Probability

Edited by Simulacra, Vladimir_Nesov, rdb, PeerInfinity, et al. last updated 16th Sep 2020

Bayesian probability represents a level of certainty relating to a potential outcome or idea. This is in contrast to a frequentist probability that represents the frequency with which a particular outcome will occur over any number of trials.

An event with Bayesian probability of .6 (or 60%) should be interpreted as stating "With confidence 60%, this event contains the true outcome", whereas a frequentist interpretation would view it as stating "Over 100 trials, we should observe event X approximately 60 times."

The difference is more apparent when discussing ideas. A frequentist will not assign probability to an idea; either it is true or false and it cannot be true 6 times out of 10.

Blog posts

  • What is Bayesianism?
  • Probability is Subjectively Objective
  • Probability is in the Mind
  • When (Not) To Use Probabilities
  • Against NHST
  • All Less Wrong posts tagged "Probability"

See also

  • Priors
  • Bayesian
  • Bayes' theorem
  • Mind projection fallacy

External links

  • BIPS: Bayesian Inference for the Physical Sciences
  • Maximum entropy thermodynamics
  • What is Bayesian statistics?
Discussion0
Discussion0