Related papers: Noisy Deductive Reasoning: How Humans Construct Ma…
Stochastic processes offer a flexible mathematical formalism to model and reason about systems. Most analysis tools, however, start from the premises that models are fully specified, so that any parameters controlling the system's dynamics…
We introduce a framework that can be used to model both mathematics and human reasoning about mathematics. This framework involves {stochastic mathematical systems} (SMSs), which are stochastic processes that generate pairs of questions and…
The systematic biases seen in people's probability judgments are typically taken as evidence that people do not reason about probability using the rules of probability theory, but instead use heuristics which sometimes yield reasonable…
We offer a view of mathematics as an experimental science where axioms play the role of foundational theories like general relativity and quantum mechanics in physics. Under this view, axioms are provisional and inferred from experience…
Mathematical reasoning---a core ability within human intelligence---presents some unique challenges as a domain: we do not come to understand and solve mathematical problems primarily on the back of experience and evidence, but on the basis…
Abductive reasoning, reasoning for inferring explanations for observations, is often mentioned in scientific, design-related and artistic contexts, but its understanding varies across these domains. This paper reviews how abductive…
The analysis of computer models can be aided by the construction of surrogate models, or emulators, that statistically model the numerical computer model. Increasingly, computer models are becoming stochastic, yielding different outputs…
We present a method for incorporating a stochastic point of view into physics exercises of mathematics education. The core of our method is the randomization of some inputs, the system model used does not differ from what we would use in…
This article looks at how reasoning works in current Large Language Models (LLMs) that function using the token-completion method. It examines their stochastic nature and their similarity to human abductive reasoning. The argument is that…
Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to…
This essay considers the special character of mathematical reasoning, and draws on observations from interactive theorem proving and the history of mathematics to clarify the nature of formal and informal mathematical language. It proposes…
This paper presents a plausible reasoning system to illustrate some broad issues in knowledge representation: dualities between different reasoning forms, the difficulty of unifying complementary reasoning styles, and the approximate nature…
Scientists often think of the world (or some part of it) as a dynamical system, a stochastic process, or a generalization of such a system. Prominent examples of systems are (i) the system of planets orbiting the sun or any other classical…
We claim that human mathematics is only a limited part of the consequences of the chosen basic axioms. Properly human mathematics varies with time but appears to have universal features which we try to analyze. In particular the functioning…
This paper presents a general approach to linear stochastic processes driven by various random noises. Mathematically, such processes are described by linear stochastic differential equations of arbitrary order (the simplest non-trivial…
We introduce the notion of a stochastic probabilistic program and present a reference implementation of a probabilistic programming facility supporting specification of stochastic probabilistic programs and inference in them. Stochastic…
The process of doing Science in condition of uncertainty is illustrated with a toy experiment in which the inferential and the forecasting aspects are both present. The fundamental aspects of probabilistic reasoning, also relevant in real…
Applying automated reasoning tools for decision support and analysis in law has the potential to make court decisions more transparent and objective. Since there is often uncertainty about the accuracy and relevance of evidence,…
A key goal of systems biology is the predictive mathematical description of gene regulatory circuits. Different approaches are used such as deterministic and stochastic models, models that describe cell growth and division explicitly or…
Matrix determinants play an important role in data analysis, in particular when Gaussian processes are involved. Due to currently exploding data volumes, linear operations - matrices - acting on the data are often not accessible directly…