E.T. Jaynes (1989) Clearing up the Mysteries: The Original Goal

January 21, 2012

Psychotherapy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Thompson_Jaynes

Here is a .pdf of an accessible sample of ET Jaynes‘ writing. ET Jaynes (1989) Clearing Up the Mysteries.  Note that Jaynes’ magnum opus is Probability Theory: The Logic of Science.

Abstract: We show how the character of a scienti c theory depends on one’s attitude toward probability. Many circumstances seem mysterious or paradoxical to one who thinks that probabilities are real physical properties existing in Nature. But when we adopt the “Bayesian Inference” viewpoint of Harold Je ffreys, paradoxes often become simple platitudes and we have a more powerful tool for useful calculations. This is illustrated by three examples from widely di fferent fields: di ffusion in kinetic theory, the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox in quantum theory, and the second law of thermodynamics in biology.

It is a talk at Cambridge in honor of Harold Jeffreys, for whom the Jeffreys prior is named.

About Peter Freed, M.D.

I am a psychiatrist (psychopharmacology and psychotherapy) specializing in the so-called "personality disorders," particularly narcissistic and borderline personality disorders. I was a Fellow and then an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia from 2004- 2011, when I had an intellectual crisis-of-faith in which I stopped believing that neuroimaging could shed significant insight into the mystery of subjective experience. Since then I have focused on my clinical practice (at the Personality Studies Institute) and philosophical concerns.

View all posts by Peter Freed, M.D.

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