Ep: 113 Steven Pinker’s ”Rationality” Chapter 4 ”Probability and Randomness” Remarks and Analysis

Pinker lecturing on Rationality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW43X... Link to "psychological study" on what people think about meteorological predictions: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1... titled “A 30% Chance of Rain Tomorrow”: How Does the Public Understand Probabilistic Weather Forecasts?” This video and associated podcast are about Steven Pinker's book "Rationality". Today I am looking at the chapter titled "Probability and Randomness". Well, to be fair: more than "looking" I am doing a close reading...perhaps an excruciating close reading for some. However the book is about rationality and I think we need to be especially careful when explaining this concept to be precise and careful and - yes - perhaps even consistent (as far as is possible). This episode of ToKCast can be watched or listened to in conjunction with episode number 111 titled "Probability: Reality, Rationality and Risk" because in that episode I summarise David Deutsch's lecture on the topic of probability which brings to bear physical realism to the topic and so what I am doing here is comparing the perspective on "Probability" (and randomness) as described in the book "Rationality" with the perspective on probability as viewed under David Deutsch's realistic conception of the concept given what we know from physics (and philosophy). Todays episode serves 3 functions: (1) as a close reading (i.e: a critique in places) of how the concepts "probability" and "randomness" are used in the book - sometimes, as I argue in ways that appear to be inconsistent (2) as a summary of much of the good content in the chapter - for example anyone who wants a refresher on the high school mathematics of probability - we go through some of that (this is not meant to be a backhanded comment - it is interesting material!) and (3) as I have already said this version of probability which I might call the "mainstream academic" vision of probability as compared with probability in light of more recent discoveries in physics. At this point I should also advertise: my newsletter (see episode 112 for details on that) and my Patreon and donations links at www.bretthall.org