Over history, humans have gravitated around three poles, magic, religion, and science. Secretly, all they want is a disguised version of magic.
Shared by JohnH
“PAPER TO BE PRESENTED AT BENOIT MANDELBROT’S MEMORIAL Yale University, APRIL 29, 2011” HatTip to Dave Lull
Paper on the epistemology of error.
An error rate can be measured. The measurement, in turn, will have an error rate. The measurement of the error rate will have an error rate. The measurement of the error rate will have an error rate. We can use the same argument by replacing “measurement” by “estimation” (say estimating the future value of an economic variable, the rainfall in Brazil, or the risk of a nuclear accident). What is called a regress argument by philosophers can be used to put some scrutiny on quantitative methods or risk and probability. The mere existence of such regress argument will lead to two different regimes, both leading to the necessity to raise the values of small probabilities, and one of them to the necessity to use power law distributions.
Shared by JohnH
Most of this article is behind a paywall right now. HatTip to Dave Lull. Article has been opened to public until 6/13/11.
Such environments eventually experience massive blowups, catching everyone off-guard and undoing years of stability or, in some cases, ending up far worse than they were in their initial volatile state. Indeed, the longer it takes for the blowup to occur, the worse the resulting harm in both economic and political systems.
Seeking to restrict variability seems to be good policy (who does not prefer stability to chaos?), so it is with very good intentions that policymakers unwittingly increase the risk of major blowups. And it is the same misperception of the properties of natural systems that led to both the economic crisis of 2007-8 and the current turmoil in the Arab world. The policy implications are identical: to make systems robust, all risks must be visible and out in the open — fluctuat nec mergitur (it fluctuates but does not sink) goes the Latin saying.
WEB: I read the physical NYT (first time in years). Was invaded by the philistinism of a world I want to shut myself away from, with articles I did not want to read but, with headlines and photos, forced themselves on me [pictures of politicians, businessmen, or worse, “cultural” matters.] For all its ills, the web, for those who can navigate, can save us from the profane.
But only for those who can navigate it…
A technical paper (epistemology and probability) about the errors in the estimation of the error rate of an error rate of an error rate (and so forth) … FUKUSHIMA (still in DRAFT)
www.fooledbyrandomness.com/errors.pdf
http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/errors.pdf
www.fooledbyrandomness.com