“Wouldn’t defend” is an interestingly ambiguous phrase!—it could mean “I don’t think the thesis is true,” or it could mean “I think the thesis is true, but I’m not going to argue for it here.”
That sounds like “thesis is true” or “thesis is not true” are reasonable positions. Bayesian beliefs have probabilities attached to them.
There are also other reasons why one might not argue for giving a belief a high credence. I might hold my belief based on a variety of personal experiences that I can’t condense into a post. I might also hold it based on confidential information that I’m not willing to share.
That sounds like “thesis is true” or “thesis is not true” are reasonable positions. Bayesian beliefs have probabilities attached to them.
Sometimes, even people who understand Bayesian reasoning use idiomatic phrases like “believe is true” as a convenient shorthand for “assign a high probability to”! I can see how that might be confusing!
Most of the beliefs of the “I wouldn’t defend it publically” are neither >0.999 credence or <0.001 and it’s worthwhile to mentally categories them differently.
Again, people sometimes use idiomatic English to describe subjective states of high confidence that do not literally correspond to probabilities greater than 0.999! (Why that specific threshold, anyway?)
You know, I take it back; I actually can’t see how this might be confusing.
That sounds like “thesis is true” or “thesis is not true” are reasonable positions. Bayesian beliefs have probabilities attached to them.
There are also other reasons why one might not argue for giving a belief a high credence. I might hold my belief based on a variety of personal experiences that I can’t condense into a post. I might also hold it based on confidential information that I’m not willing to share.
Sometimes, even people who understand Bayesian reasoning use idiomatic phrases like “believe is true” as a convenient shorthand for “assign a high probability to”! I can see how that might be confusing!
Most of the beliefs of the “I wouldn’t defend it publically” are neither >0.999 credence or <0.001 and it’s worthwhile to mentally categories them differently.
Again, people sometimes use idiomatic English to describe subjective states of high confidence that do not literally correspond to probabilities greater than 0.999! (Why that specific threshold, anyway?)
You know, I take it back; I actually can’t see how this might be confusing.