Epistemology #0

[jack]

Recently I saw discussions on AI, and the possibilities of representing its knowledge by assinging % confidences (subjective probabilities) to statements, and the problems where a belief in one part of the brain didn't match that in another. I've read a lot around the topic, and Hempel's paradox, and Bayesian reasoning, and upper-and-lower probabilities, and may follow up with some contentful posts, but I experienced that cognitive dissonance today, and thought I'd record it.

Me: Ooh, there's another Cat wizard book by Diane Duane. It's being partially published online, it's really interesting to see professional authors continuing to investigate that. And she says "beta readers".
Me: Hold on, *have* I read the first one?
Me: I ordered it from amazon marketplace, I was excited about that.
Me: The books arrived.
Me: I've read all of them but [other name] and [other other name].
Me: So why don't I remember it?
Me: Checks autoconfirm email. Paid for.
Me: Doh! Goes to write previous post. Emails amazon. Checks bank statement and sees refund.
Me: Hmmm. Apparently that chain of 95% certainties was weaker than all the links, and something fell into the 1-0.95^n gap. "The" books arrived, I didn't stop to think if that was "every" book...

Comments

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Diane Duane is also a regular reader and occasional poster on fandom_wank. It's scary, and rather cool, just how involved in fandommy stuff she seems to be!

[cornute.livejournal.com]

Wow! Thanks for the pointer, I've been a huge fan of hers for years! (And now I don't have to wait for whatever those people at Meisha Merlin publishers are doing!)