A life in words

  • Priority

    In Bayesian statistics [based on those opening words I know I’ve already lost 50% of you] there is a concept of a priori and a posteriori beliefs. A prior probability distribution (also simply called a prior) indicates that prior to making an observation I already have some beliefs about the nature of the system being…

  • So Open It’s Closed

    There is a point at which an open mind becomes so open that it closes in on itself. At least, that’s what I think. At some point, the willingness to consider any and every thought as at least initially equivalent can wash out any willingness to evaluate the accuracy of those viewpoints. At that point,…

  • Choice and Belief: A Deliberately Credulous Introduction

    It’s been a little while since posting, and there’s a reason: I’ve been sitting on a stool somewhere in a smoke-filled room (Note: It wasn’t tobacco smoke—somebody just burned something in the oven, of course!) slaving away over a series of new articles on the topic of Choice and Belief. If after reading through all…

The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it may be the interest of this Assembly to do strict justice at all times, it should be an equal representation, or in other words equal interest among the people should have equal interest in it. Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections.John Adams, Thoughts on Government, April 1776