How do you interpret raw data?

[shadowpuppet]

Specifically, how do you come to believe what you do? Common methods of justifying novel premises epistemologically tend to favor one of two ideologies:

• Stochastic - likes to interpret according to high recurrence and correlativity
• Fatalist - believes that future/past can be deduced from knowledge of present circumstances

These are the two ideological premises from which the six poll methods can be derived: Ætiologic, Nomothetic, and Solipsist arguments can be seen primarily as assertions of determinism, whereas Bayesian, Frequentist, and Pyrrhonian frames of reference always adhere to a statistical approach. There is also another undercurrent running in this poll: Frequentist and Ætiologic justifications tend to employ an exclusively empirical underpinning; Nomothetic and Bayesian inferences depend heavily on a priori convictions (Solipsism is also usually defended using the a priori because a posteriori attempts at verification are not widely credited; Pyrrhonism may seem like an analytic proposition at first but it actually only indoctrinates an inductive negation of premises, including the self-negation of any premise that might eventually support a rationalist Pyrrhonian criterion, and so is actually an [anti-] empirical enterprise - I have taken great pains to clarify this in the past; you can hear my detailed arguments http://youtube.com/watch?v=mdEreZjrNeM").

 

[Pythagorean]

I don't really justify much, I have a healthy mix of comfort and obligation in my work (i.e. I do what I want and what it takes to get by):

Ætiologic - isolates mechanisms for direct causation
Bayesian - tends to include extraneous a priori considerations
Frequentist - respects only empirical evidence and probability
Nomothetic - uses an intuitive system of diagnostic references
Pyrrhonian - will doubt anything, even skepticism itself
Solipsist - ascribes perceptual qualia exclusively to the mind

Ætiologic - don't use, I think it's politicians?
Bayesian - politicians...?

Frequentist - me at work and school and sometimes during introspection (your memory is a terrible sample space though, methinx, but maybe there's a reason some events stick out more than others, we call it 'weighting' in statistics, *chuckle*).

Nomothetic - I practice this a lot, sometimes even at work, but I never rely solely on it, and investigate as a Frequentist before.

Pyrrhonian - I go here sometimes.

Solipsist - it's an interesting point that has it's merits and I often consider it in a philosophical atmosphere, but I'm not a 'brain in a vat'.

 

[Moridin]

Bayesian / Frequentist

 

[shadowpuppet]

I don't really justify much, I have a healthy mix of comfort and obligation in my work (i.e. I do what I want and what it takes to get by):

Ætiologic - don't use, I think it's politicians?
Bayesian - politicians...?

Frequentist - me at work and school and sometimes during introspection (your memory is a terrible sample space though, methinx, but maybe there's a reason some events stick out more than others, we call it 'weighting' in statistics, *chuckle*).

Nomothetic - I practice this a lot, sometimes even at work, but I never rely solely on it, and investigate as a Frequentist before.

Pyrrhonian - I go here sometimes.

Solipsist - it's an interesting point that has it's merits and I often consider it in a philosophical atmosphere, but I'm not a 'brain in a vat'.

I agree with your description of solipsism, but I am not sure what you mean by 'politicians' and I think that the activation of memory has a lot to do with long-term potentiation and parallel connectivity in the hippocampus and cortex. However, if you primarily consider yourself to be a Frequentist, please remember to vote for it in the poll.

Bayesian / Frequentist

Bayesian is a statistical form of rationalism and Frequentist is a statistical form of empiricism. Do you tend to prefer to theorize in your mind (Bayesian) or would you rather experiment in the real world (Frequentist)? Don't forget to vote!

 

[Crosson]

I voted nomothetic because I am always thinking like a physicist, I dislike frequentist and Ætiologic deduction (although it reminds me of engineering), I doubt the validity of bayesianism applied to reality, and I favor Wittgenstein's rejection of Pyrrhonism and Solipsism.

 

[Moridin]

Bayesian is a statistical form of rationalism and Frequentist is a statistical form of empiricism. Do you tend to prefer to theorize in your mind (Bayesian) or would you rather experiment in the real world (Frequentist)? Don't forget to vote!

I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

 

[shadowpuppet]

I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

How is that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_probability#Bayesianism

 

[Pythagorean]

I agree with your description of solipsism, but I am not sure what you mean by 'politicians' and I think that the activation of memory has a lot to do with long-term potentiation and parallel connectivity in the hippocampus and cortex. However, if you primarily consider yourself to be a Frequentist, please remember to vote for it in the poll.

Yeah, my answers were a bit terse and I see a grammar error even. I meant that these seem like methods meant for making big conclusions that are inevitably at the mercy of politics.

Here's your definitions:

Ætiologic - isolates mechanisms for direct causation
Bayesian - tends to include extraneous a priori considerations

I might have a misunderstanding about Baeyesian, but showing causation is often associated with political motivation in my mind; extraneous a priori considerations reminds me of a large set of data that you've made assumptions about in order to arrive at your conclusion about causation.