Related papers: When intuition fails in assessing conditional risk…
Consider the following story: A teacher announces to her students a test for the following week, such that the test will be ``surprising''. The students use this as the basis for a ``logical derivation'' and reach a contradiction, which…
The Borel--Kolmogorov paradox of conditioning with respect to events of prior probability zero has fascinated students and researchers since its discovery more than 100 years ago. Classical conditioning is only valid with respect to events…
I think we can agree that dealing with uncertainty is not easy. Probability is the main tool for dealing with uncertainty, and we know there are many probability-related puzzles and paradoxes. Here I describe a rather idiosyncratic…
In this article, I will present a paradox whose purpose is to draw your attention to an important topic in finance, concerning the non-independence of the financial returns (non-ergodic hypothesis). In this paradox, we have two people…
The concept of informal mathematical proof considered in intuitionism is apparently vulnerable to a version of the liar paradox. However, a careful reevaluation of this concept reveals a subtle error whose correction blocks the…
Agents' judgment depends on perception and previous knowledge. Assuming that previous knowledge depends on perception, we can say that judgment depends on perception. So, if judgment depends on perception, can agents judge that they have…
Lord's Paradox occurs when a continuous covariate is statistically controlled for and the relationship between a continuous outcome and group status indicator changes in both magnitude and direction. This phenomenon poses a challenge to the…
In Newcomb's paradox you choose to receive either the contents of a particular closed box, or the contents of both that closed box and another one. Before you choose, a prediction algorithm deduces your choice, and fills the two boxes based…
The doctrinal paradox is analysed from a probabilistic point of view assuming a simple parametric model for the committee's behaviour. The well known issue-by-issue and case-by-case majority rules are compared in this model, by means of the…
In human consciousness perceptions are distinct or atomistic events despite being perceived by an apparently undivided inner observer. This paper applies both classical (Boolean) and quantum logic to analysis of the Liar paradox which is…
The Fermi paradox is the conflict between an expectation of a high {\em ex ante} probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and the apparently lifeless universe we in fact observe. The expectation that the universe should be…
Many writers have observed that default logics appear to contain the "lottery paradox" of probability theory. This arises when a default "proof by contradiction" lets us conclude that a typical X is not a Y where Y is an unusual subclass of…
I'll discuss how Goedel's paradox "This statement is false/unprovable" yields his famous result on the limits of axiomatic reasoning. I'll contrast that with my work, which is based on the paradox of "The first uninteresting positive whole…
People reason heuristically in situations resembling inferential puzzles such as Bertrand's box paradox and the Monty Hall problem. The practical significance of that fact for economic decision making is uncertain because a departure from…
Parrondo's paradox is about a paradoxical game and gambling where two probabilistic losing games can be combined to form a winning game. While the counter intuitive game is interesting in itself, it can be thought of a discrete version of…
Consider a growing system of random walks on the 3,2-alternating tree, where generations of nodes alternate between having two and three children. Any time a particle lands on a node which has not been visited previously, a new particle is…
Philosophers writing about the ravens paradox often note that Nicod's Condition (NC) holds given some set of background information, and fails to hold against others, but rarely go any further. That is, it is usually not explored which…
In Newcomb's paradox you choose to receive either the contents of a particular closed box, or the contents of both that closed box and another one. Before you choose though, an antagonist uses a prediction algorithm to deduce your choice,…
We analyze selected iterated conditionals in the framework of conditional random quantities. We point out that it is instructive to examine Lewis's triviality result, which shows the conditions a conditional must satisfy for its probability…
The method of maximum entropy has been very successful but there are cases where it has either failed or led to paradoxes that have cast doubt on its general legitimacy. My more optimistic assessment is that such failures and paradoxes…