17 Reader Responses

1. rev max Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 12:25 pm

   a possible terrorist attack seems more like a metaphysical event than something to sit around and soil yourself about.

   ———————

   If it wasn’t terrorism it would be something else, perhaps a comet (Deep Impact) or aliens (Independence Day) or Zombies (28 Days)

   Have you ever read Jean Baudrillard’s “Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers”? It’s fascinating albeit filled with sophistry of the most egregious kind.

   He argues (basically) that the towers were symbols of global capital, that they collapsed from the weight of all the meaning they were asked to bear, the attck was an attack of one symbol on another in a hyperreal media environment so its almost like it never really happened!

   LOL. Not literally true but I think I get the point he was trying to make.

2. Ran Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 12:36 pm

   i would disagree with both you and the math teacher. the chance of anything happening is either 100 percent or zero percent — we just don’t know which.

3. rev max Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 12:36 pm

   ah, found it:

   Among the other weapons of the system which they have co-opted against it, terrorists have exploited the real time of images (not clear here if it is real duration, real time or images in real time), their instantaneous global diffusion. They have appropriated it in the same way as they have appropriated financial speculation, electronic information or air traffic. The role of images is highly ambiguous. For they capture the event (take it as hostage) at the same time as they glorify it. They can be infinitely multiplied, and at the same time act as a diversion and a neutralization (as happened for the events of May 68). One always forgets that when one speaks of the “danger” of the media. The image consumes the event, that is, it absorbs the latter and gives it back as consumer goods. Certainly the image gives to the event an unprecedented impact, but as an image-event.

   What happens then to the real event, if everywhere the image, the fiction, the virtual, infuses reality? In this present case, one might perceive (maybe with a certain relief) a resurgence of the real, and of the violence of the real, in a supposedly virtual universe. “This is the end of all your virtual stories — that is real!” Similarly, one could perceive a resurrection of history after its proclaimed death. But does reality really prevail over fiction? If it seems so, it is because reality has absorbed the energy of fiction, and become fiction itself. One could almost say that reality is jealous of fiction, that the real is jealous of the image… It is as if they duel, to find which is the most unimaginable.

   The collapse of the towers of the World Trade Center is unimaginable, but that is not enough to make it a real event. A surplus of violence is not enough to open up reality. For reality is a principle, and this principle is lost. Real and fiction are inextricable, and the fascination of the attack is foremost the fascination by the image (the consequences, whether catastrophic or leading to jubilation are themselves mostly imaginary).

4. Jason Bradfield Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 1:32 pm

   I don’t follow you here. The chance of rolling a die and getting a six is intuitively lower than rolling a die and getting not-six. In the same way the probability of terror strikes varies from parameter set to parameter set. For example, I would be willing to bet that a Wal-Mart in Ohio has a lower probability of experiencing a terror strike than the building I am sitting in right now which is close to the White House.

   Having said that I am sure as hell not going to give up my job to work in a Wal-Mart in Ohio. I don’t think the probability is high enough to warrant that action.

   It should be remember that probabilities are nothing more than one person’s or group’s best guess. The problem with our media is that they use probability estimates to work up strong emotions (positive or negative, usually positive for advertisers, negative for news, this polarity helps make the advertisements more effective).

5. alistair Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 2:43 pm

   statistics are for analysis.the simple fact that something either happens or it doesn`t still remains as valid and true.50/50 or 0/100.the witness still reports the same thing.if,on the other hand we need to predict and control future events,then statistics are useful tools.take poker as an example.it is healthy for your money to know the statisical odds of how strong your cards are vs. what you believe is in the hands of others.there are charts available that show this.
   statistics like demographics or goal difference are very strong predictors of performance.
   but the really big events do seem to happen against all odds.

6. Arizona Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 7:16 pm

   Tim, your idea that the chances of any event happening are 50/50 is based on a situation of complete ignorance. Probability reflects our knowledge of the determining data for an event. If we have absolutely no knowledge then the 50/50 answer arises as the probability equivalent of “I know nothing at all”. As soon as you do know something, then the probability will change (except in cases like coin tossing where the probability is stable at 50/50). The more you know about the determining data (eg number of sides of a die or a history of previous events, etc), the closer you approach perfect knowledge, the more likely you can say the probability is 0/100 (or 100/0).

   Take a horse race. The odds fluctuate in the lead up to the race but are set or closed when the race begins. If they could continue to fluctuate you would see them steadily approach the 0/100 situation as the race draws to its end. Knowledge of the outcome increases more and more. One hundredth of a second before the outcome there is a sense in which no one knows for sure which horse will win. That is expressed by saying that the probability is short of a perfect 0/100, it’s still only 0.000000001/99.999999999. It’s certainly not as bad as 50/50 at that stage!

   You would lose a lot of money fast if you bet according to your 50/50 hypothesis.

7. Jon Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 7:18 pm

   I love how you said “metaphysical event” in relation to terrorist attacks. That seems to be the underlying basis of some conspiracy theories. The probability of an attack is on the magnitude of a “metaphysical event”, and thus if it does happen, it most likely was not caused (or at least not entirely set up and caused) by terrorists. That “metaphysical event” must then be caused or somehow related to shadow governments, illuminati, secret societies (bohemian club/skull and bones are my favorite), or aliens. The even cooler conspiracy theories link them all together in one giant collage.

8. Occult Investigator Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 7:45 pm

   People, please. I understand how probability works and why we use it. No need to try to beat me over the head with it. I’m merely trying to present an alternate approach to things. The thing for me on the 50% hypothesis is that in one sense it’s equally true to statistics and probability. In another, it’s not. In itself, it acts as a pretty nice illustration of what I was saying above about how there are more choices than just yes/no black/white. I also think it’s a fun tool to use to expose at your own underlying premises about things you take for granted. Some people obviously have an emotional attachment to concepts like probability, and find it threatening or absurd to question them. Why?

9. Arizona Says:
   June 23rd, 2005 at 8:51 pm

   Tim, it seems to me that you’d be more comfortable with fuzzy logic. Some claim it is probability theory stated differently, some say it is more fundamentally novel. Either way, it might suit your style better. It more readily accommodates the neither and both possibilities. Probability theory arose out of a black-and-white logic and is limited by that. It’s good to want to stretch those boundaries, not so good to confuse things. I’m just trying to help you avoid that.

   Note: My initial statement above could be open to misinterpretation. A “situation of complete ignorance” is one where nothing is known. I wasn’t referring to your state of mind or level of education. Only to the kind of situation in which that idea legitimately applies.

10. Occult Investigator Says:
    June 23rd, 2005 at 10:33 pm

    oh i know. its cool. im just trying to say my point in a better way i guess.

11. alistair Says:
    June 23rd, 2005 at 10:49 pm

    math and science,like religion demand that thier map is the best and only.shit happens.
    i found a cell phone while riding my bike the other day.it sat on top of my fridge for a while.then today i took one of my cell phone chargers and charged it up,retrieving the adress book.i scrolled down to home and called the number.i described what happened to the man on the other end and then told him who i was.he said i know you,you`re michael`s father,he plays on my boy`s soccer team and i know you too because we talked at thier game on wednsday.
    is there a mathmatical model to describe the pattern of goose bumps on my arms at that moment?

12. human? Says:
    June 24th, 2005 at 2:37 am

    “As soon as you do know something, then the probability will change (except in cases like coin tossing where the probability is stable at 50/50).”

    so doesnt that mean it should land on its side every time?

    im definitly into the novel approach of the color world.

13. human? Says:
    June 24th, 2005 at 2:38 am

    Doh!

    ^^^ he meant edge.

14. Jon Headlee Says:
    June 24th, 2005 at 2:40 am

    The mathmatical model is called the string theory (or actually, the closest thing we have to it at the moment), which can be tied to the Holographic Universe, which ties itself to Jung’s collective unconscious, which subsequently ties you (alistair) to the other man (and then creates your goose bumps).

    Just a thought.

15. alistair Says:
    June 24th, 2005 at 7:11 am

    thanks jon.without getting the math and physics guys pissed,i really wish that they could do better than little strings,so tiny you can`t see them,all looped together into infinity.it`s like the big bang thingy.i can`t refute it……….but it explains nothing.and the physicists still keep the cheques coming.we(taxpayers) keep these guys in elbow patches and tweed so that they can come up with codified novels full of hierogliphs that few people understand.some of them have invented new codes,that they then teach to thier buddies just in case we were getting to the scent(now i`m being unfair).a few years ago a bunch of them made one fuck of a big bang in the desert,then the break things and kill people boys grabbed the shit and dropped a couple of them on people and that seemed to take the wind out of the math people`s sail for a while.
    meanwhile we keep having experiences that are shared by most of humanity but james randi says it`s crap and he`s got the math to prove it.
    i have no choice but to keep my oars in the water,rowing along,knowing that we live in some sort of consciousness driven reality.how it works,i don`t know,but i appreciate the validation i get here.

16. slomo Says:
    June 24th, 2005 at 10:08 am

    Yikes. I was busy having fun yesterday, otherwise I would have weighed in earlier. I do this kind of thing for a living.

    In a frequentist statistical framework, statements like “There is a 50% chance of such-and-such happening” are meaningless. Unless you’re talking about the weather, but in that case the implied statement is really “Under similar conditions of temperature, humidity, pressure, time-of-year, etc., in the past, XX% of the time, rain followed, according to models applied to historical data.” No such statement is possible with historical events like a terrorist attack, where the conditions analogous to temperature, humidity, pressure, etc. are too numerous and their interrelationships too complex for a statistical model to yield meaningful results. Ran has it pretty much right.

    Recast in a Bayesian framework, where one is allowed to factor in subjective assumptions, it is possible to assign a probability that reflects experts’ confidence in an event happening or not happening. But then the result hangs on the subjective opinions of the experts.

    So, such statements are really an attempt to make experts’ subjective opionion sound quantitative. Nothing wrong with that, but it would be better if the officials who issue these kinds of statements were clear about what they were really saying. (Yeah, right.)

    Finally, I am almost always surprised how much controversy and emotion is generated by statements about probability. You can get people at each others’ throats by introducing the “Monty Hall” problem. But the basic problem is, as introduced in a health policy course I once took from a kick-ass professor: “when it comes to intuition and probability, humans suck.”

17. alistair Says:
    June 25th, 2005 at 5:31 pm

    “Recast in a Bayesian framework, where one is allowed to factor in subjective assumptions,”
    can i get a bayesian framework for my next loan application?math is so elegant that it can wiggle out of the elegance back into elegance again,because it bloody well says so.in a bayesian framework……..fucking love that shit.