The Logic of Chance, 3rd edition: An Essay on the Foundations and Province of the Theory of Probability, With Especial Reference to Its Logical Bearings and Its Application to Moral and Social Science and to StatisticsVenn, John
Philosophy
The Logic of Chance, 3rd edition: An Essay on the Foundations and Province of the Theory of Probability, With Especial Reference to Its Logical Bearings and Its Application to Moral and Social Science and to Statistics
Venn, John
Chance; Logic, Symbolic and mathematical; Probabilities; Science -- Methodology
11. This is, to a certain extent, only shifting the difficulty,
I admit; for the claim formerly advanced about the
possibility of proving the proportions of the throws in the
former series, will probably now be repeated in favour of
those in the latter. Still the question is very much narrowed,
for we have reduced it to a series of _voluntary_ acts.
A man may put whatever side he pleases uppermost. He
may act consciously, as I have said, or he may think nothing
whatever about the matter, that is, throw at random; if so,
it will probably be asserted by many that he will involuntarily
produce a series of the kind in question. It may be
so, or it may not; it does not seem that there are any
easily accessible data by which to decide. All that I am
concerned with here is to show the likelihood that the commonly
received result does in reality depend upon the fulfilment
of a certain condition at the outset, a condition which
it is certainly optional with any one to fulfil or not as he
pleases. The short successions doubtless will take care of
themselves, owing to the infinite complications produced by
the casual variations in throwing; but the long ones may
suffer, unless their interest be consciously or unconsciously
regarded at the outset.
12. The advice, 'Only try long enough, and you will
sooner or later get any result that is possible,' is plausible,
but it rests only on Induction and Analogy; mathematics do
not prove it. As has been repeatedly stated, there are two
distinct views of the subject. Either we may, on the one
hand, take a series of symbols, call them heads and tails;
H, T, &c.; and make the assumption that each of these, and
each pair of them, and so on, will occur in the long run with
a regulated degree of frequency. We may then calculate
their various combinations, and the consequences that may
be drawn from the data assumed. This is a purely algebraical
process; it is infallible; and there is no limit whatever to the
extent to which it may be carried. This way of looking at
the matter may be, and undoubtedly should be, nothing
more than the counterpart of what I have called the substituted
or idealized series which generally has to be introduced
as the basis of our calculation. The danger to be guarded
against is that of regarding it too purely as an algebraical
conception, and thence of sinking into the very natural
errors both of too readily evolving it out of our own consciousness,
and too freely pushing it to unwarranted lengths.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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