Get Your Hands On The Science Of Conjecture Created By James Franklin Available Through Document

you have a formal science background, the only way in which you know "probability" is via assorted mathematical equations, If you work in AI, you try to apply those equations or related things, like neural nets to solve tasks, But if you work in AGI, you have to ask harder questions, like "how does one know if something is true" and "what does it mean to know something"

and "how can I prove that this is true" and for that, math is insufficient.
The point is that courts of law use proofs all the time: "proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" and this is NOT a statement about Bayesian inference.
So what is it

It turns out that this is the highest form of a theory of probability developed by the medieval Scholastics, and survives unmodified to this very day in our legal system.
Franklin explains who the Scholastics are, why they did what they did, and why its important, Well, he actually explains/reviews much much more, but this was my favorite, most memorable part, So if you have that formal science background, this is a very refreshing and entertaining reminder that there's much more to probability than just equations, and how it is that we got to here.


p. s. turns out "Occam's Razor" is a good bit more subtle than it's current modernday usage, It was originally a statement about the nature of probability and proof, and how God evades it, when performing miracles, The current, modern form of "Occam's Razor" was actually first stated by Aristotle what Occam did was add the twist about God, There is no questioning the scholarship and thoroughness of this book, The only problem is that it truly reads like a reference book, And if it were sold as such I'd easily give itstars, I'm sure I'll be referring to it many times, It does not overlook nonmathematical contributions to the "science of conjecture" and that's a big strength of the book, though it also forces the author to really cover a lot of material most wouldn't normally think of as directly related probability.
The closest it comes to a readable book is in the conclusion, but just enumerating the subsections fieldsin that chaptercan give some idea of how much is crammed into this book and its style:
Mathematics, Legal Theory, Political Theory, Economics, Psychology, Philosophy, Linguistics, Physics, Arithmetic, Geometry, Ethics, Anthropology, Hermeneutics, Knowledge Organization and Information Technology, Argument and Logic and a few others.



If the title of this book seems daunting to you, well, then, your instincts are sound, This is not a book for the faint of heart, However, if you're up for an amazing intellectual trek through the highcountry and some low country of the mind, then you'll find this book a genuinely rewarding experience.
I came to the book via a recommendation from Nassim Taleb, and the praise that Taleb expressed for the book proved more than accurate.


Author James Franklin is an Australian mathematicianphilosopher, but this description sells him short, The breadth of learning displayed in this volume is truly astonishing, Reading it, you might guess him a linguist, a lawyer, a rhetorician, a medievalist, a scientist, and so on, As the title lets you know, his topics are broad"evidence" and "probability"and his account runs from the dawn of Western civ in Egypt and Mesopotamia up to the early modern period of Pascal.
Would that someone write a similar history of Indian and Chinese thought! Pascal, along with Fermat and Huygens, and a few lesserknown figures, marked a change in thinking about probability when they developed mathematical models and algorithms for calculating the odds probabilities involved in stochastic games of chance, such as dice.
But as Franklin notes from the beginning of this book, most thinking about probability throughout Western history, including the period after Pascal, addresses probability and chance by the use of ordinary language.
We see this demonstrated in terms such as "more likely than not," "a preponderance of the evidence," and "beyond reasonable doubt" to give examples of common phrases still used today by lawyers, judges, and juries.

Franklin traces ideas about evidence and probability through the domain of law, which proves the most significant domain for delineating issues of evidence in general and probabilities in particular.
But Franklin also addresses developments about these topics in rhetoric, philosophy, theology, moral theology and philosophy such as the casuistry of the Jesuits, insurance and business law, and natural science.
Thinking about issues of evidence and probability has its roots in Greek and Roman thought, but perhaps more noteworthy is the fact that medieval thought and practice analyzed and advanced these concepts greatly.
Franklin argues adamantly against many calumnies hurled against medieval thought by modern critics, Many postclassical, preRenaissance thinkers receive attention and implicit praise from Franklin for their groundbreaking insights: names like Baldus, Orseme, Duns Scotus, Buridan, Ockham, John of Salisbury, and Nicholas of Autrecourt, and so on.
Many of these thinkers and sources were new or only vaguely familiar to me,

There are times, I must admit, when I found the going a bit slow, although only in the relatively small section on Pascal and his peers did Franklin delve much into math as such.
However, I'm quick to forgive Franklin for going a bit deep into the weeds at some points because of the importance of his overall message.
Indeed, if you're pressed for time or just want to dip your toe in the get the feel, just read his prefaces original and, Conclusion, and Epilogue and you will have received a valuable reward for your time.
Issues of evidence and the challenge of probabilities are as important and vital to our wellbeing today as they have been at any time throughout history.
Indeed, given the extraordinary human powers that now threaten the entire planet and the continued wellbeing and survival of humankind as a species, we'd do well to do all we can to educate ourselves about these principles and thereby promote sound decisionmaking involving issues of evidence and probability.
These terms were a part of my everyday concerns as a lawyer who practiced before trial and appellate courts and administrative tribunals, But issues of evidence and probability have application quite as much albeit less explicitly so in our everyday lives, We experience these issues as individuals and as members of groups, for instance, as members of political entities that make decisions that affect our wellbeing from the level of our neighborhoods to the level of our nation and even now involving our entire world.
For instance, we see these issues raised and discussed in great depth and with great concern in our thinking about how to best address climate change.


Conclusion: The Science of Conjecture is quite an amazing book as a work of scholarship and as a prompt to thought.
I would compare in its comprehensiveness and depth to Thomas McEllivey's The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies.
High praise indeed! This is a great work of scholarship,

From the ancients and their ideas of credibility to notexactlygeneralizable maxims about likelihood or reasonable doubt,

Probability is the meta subject of meta subjects, .