Related papers: Bayes Keeps Boltzmann Brains at Bay
Modern science increasingly relies on ever-growing observational datasets and automated inference pipelines, under the implicit belief that accumulating more data makes scientific conclusions more reliable. Here we show that this belief can…
Living organisms survive and multiply even though they have uncertain and incomplete information about their environment and imperfect models to predict the consequences of their actions. Bayesian models have been proposed to face this…
Bayesian rationality in strategic games presumes that it is possible to translate strategic uncertainty into imperfect information. Correlated equilibrium is guided by the idea that players are Bayes rational, have a common prior, and…
In a Perspectives article in Science, Bradley Efron concludes that Bayesian calculations cannot be uncritically accepted when using uninformative priors. We argue that this conclusion is problematic because Efron's example does not use…
The willingness to trust predictions formulated by automatic algorithms is key in a vast number of domains. However, a vast number of deep architectures are only able to formulate predictions without an associated uncertainty. In this…
Networks in nature do not act in isolation but instead exchange information, and depend on each other to function properly. An incipient theory of Networks of Networks have shown that connected random networks may very easily result in…
Ever since the creation of the first artificial intelligence (AI) machinery built on machine learning (ML), public society has entertained the idea that eventually computers could become sentient and develop a consciousness of their own. As…
The last decades saw dramatic progress in brain research. These advances were often buttressed by probing single variables to make circumscribed discoveries, typically through null hypothesis significance testing. New ways for generating…
This paper (1)shows that the best supported current psychological theory (Cheng, 1997) of how human subjects judge the causal power or influence of variations in presence or absence of one feature on another, given data on their…
Probabilistic graphical models such as Bayesian Networks are one of the most powerful structures known by the Computer Science community for deriving probabilistic inferences. However, modern cognitive psychology has revealed that human…
We look at consciousness through the lens of Theoretical Computer Science, a branch of mathematics that studies computation under resource limitations, distinguishing functions that are efficiently computable from those that are not. From…
Language models can be persuaded to abandon factual knowledge. This vulnerability is central to AI safety, but its internal mechanism remains poorly understood. We uncover a compact causal mechanism for persuasion-induced factual errors. A…
Historically, appearance of the quantum theory led to a prevailing view that Nature is indeterministic. The arguments for the indeterminism and proposals for indeterministic and deterministic approaches are reviewed. These include collapse…
Claims that the standard methodology of scientific testing is inapplicable to Everettian quantum theory, and hence that the theory is untestable, are due to misconceptions about probability and about the logic of experimental testing.…
The Bayesian brain hypothesis postulates that the brain accurately operates on statistical distributions according to Bayes' theorem. The random failure of presynaptic vesicles to release neurotransmitters may allow the brain to sample from…
This chapter provides a overview of Bayesian inference, mostly emphasising that it is a universal method for summarising uncertainty and making estimates and predictions using probability statements conditional on observed data and an…
Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that adversely affects management decisions, and mathematical modelling is an aid to its detailed understanding. Bias in opinion update about the value of a parameter is modelled here assuming that…
While physicalism requires only that a conscious state depends entirely on an underlying physical state, it is often assumed that consciousness is algorithmic and that conscious states can be copied, such as by copying or digitizing the…
Experiments on decision making under uncertainty are known to display a classical pattern of risk aversion and risk seeking referred to as "fourfold pattern" (or "reflection effect") , but recent experiments varying the speed and order of…
It is argued that the problem of interpreting quantum mechanics, and the philosophical problem of consciousness, both have their roots in the same set of misguided Cartesian assumptions. The confusions underlying those assumptions are…