{"id":1638,"date":"2013-01-12T02:16:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-12T06:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=1638"},"modified":"2013-01-12T02:16:28","modified_gmt":"2013-01-12T06:16:28","slug":"precise-probabilities-do-not-imply-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=1638","title":{"rendered":"Precise probabilities do not imply intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It annoys me when characters on TV shows, especially sci-fi shows, are portrayed as being super-intelligent by being able to ramble off precise probabilities, as if probabilities of natural occurrences are some precise science.  &#8220;The chances of succeeding are only 34.56 percent!&#8221;  No, they are either 0 percent or 100 percent.  The mathematics of probabilities are a compromise; probabilities provide a way for us to make decisions based on insufficient knowledge.  They are not real-world <em>measurements<\/em> just because we use the word &#8220;percent&#8221; when talking about them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am 53.45 percent done reading this book.&#8221;  That&#8217;s a real-world measurement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is one bullet left in this gun, so the chance of me shooting you is 16.6&#8230; percent.&#8221;  That&#8217;s a measurement of <em>imagined<\/em> futures based on <em>not knowing<\/em> which chamber a bullet is in.  The bullet is only in one chamber.  There is only <em>one<\/em> possible future.<\/p>\n<p>Truly intelligent characters do not compute precise probabilities in their heads.  It is a completely impractical way to go about thinking or making decisions.<\/p>\n<p>This annoys me as much as the idea that emotions and intelligence are somehow naturally at odds, and the price for higher intelligence is the ability to feel emotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It annoys me when characters on TV shows, especially sci-fi shows, are portrayed as being super-intelligent by being able to ramble off precise probabilities, as if probabilities of natural occurrences are some precise science. &#8220;The chances of succeeding are only 34.56 percent!&#8221; No, they are either 0 percent or 100 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gI4B-qq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}