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PROBABILITY theory is a quaint little high probabilities, such as the probability PROFILE
piece of mathematics. It is about sets of of x is near 1, should be treated almost as David Deutsch
non-negative numbers that are attached if they were x will happen. But such a researches fundamental
to actual and possible physical events, normative rule has no place in a scientific aspects of quantum
that sum to 1 and that obey certain rules. theory, especially not in physics. There information at the
It has numerous practical applications. was a 99 per cent chance of sunny weather University of Oxford.
So does the flat-Earth theory: for yesterday does not mean It was sunny. Find out more about his
instance, its an excellent approximation It all began quite innocently. Probability work on physicsand
when laying out your garden. and associated ideas such as randomness probability atarxiv.org/
Science abandoned the misconception that didnt originally have any deep scientific abs/1508.02048
Earth extends over an infinite plane, or has purpose. They were invented in the 16th and
edges, millennia ago. Probability insinuated 17th centuries by people who wanted to win
itself into physics relatively recently, yet money at games of chance.
the idea that the world actually follows
probabilistic rules is even more misleading
than saying Earth is flat. Terms such as likely, Gaming the system
probable, typical and random, and To discover the best strategies for playing
statements assigning probabilities to physical such games, they modelled them
events are incapable of saying anything mathematically. True games of chance are
about what actually will happen. driven by chancy physical processes such as
We are so familiar with probability throwing dice or shuffling cards. These have
statements that we rarely wonder what x has to be unpredictable (having no known
a probability of actually asserts about the pattern) yet equitable (not favouring any
world. Most physicists think that it means player over another). The three-card trick, for
something like: If the experiment is repeated example, does not qualify: the conjurer deals
infinitely often, half of the time the outcome the cards unpredictably (to the onlooker) but
will be x. Yet no one repeats an experiment not equitably. A roulette wheel that indicates
infinitely often. And from that statement each of its numbers in turn, meanwhile, Probability theory
about an infinite number of outcomes, behaves equitably but predictably, so equally wasdevised by
nothing follows about any finite number cannot be used to play a real game of roulette. gamblers hoping to
of outcomes. You cannot even define Earth was known to be spherical long before win more money
probability statements as being about what physics could explain how that was possible.
will happen in the long run. They only say Similarly, before game theory, mathematics random. To expect fairly tossed dice to be less
what will probably happen in the long run. could not yet accommodate an unpredictable, likely to come up with a double after a long
The awful secret at the heart of probability equitable sequence of numbers, so game sequence of doubles is a falsehood known as
theory is that physical events either happen theorists had to invent mathematical the gamblers fallacy. But if you know that a
or they dont: theres no such thing in randomness and probability. They analysed finite sequence is equitable it has an equal
nature as probably happening. Probability games as if the chancy elements were number of 1s and 0s, say then towards the
statements arent factual assertions at all. generated by randomisers: abstract devices end, knowing what came before does make it
The theory of probability as a whole is generating random sequences, with uniform easier to predict what must come next.
irretrievably normative: it says what ought probability. Such sequences are indeed A second objection is that because
to happen in certain circumstances and then unpredictable and equitable but also have classical physics is deterministic, no classical
presents us with a set of instructions. It is other, quite counter-intuitive properties. mechanism can generate a truly random
normative because it commands that very For a start, no finite sequence can be truly sequence. So why did game theory work? Why