Quotes About Probabilities

I travelled through the Northwest considerably during the winter of 1860-61. We had customers in all the little towns in southwest Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa. These generally knew I had been a captain in the regular army and had served through the Mexican war. Consequently wherever I stopped for the night, some of the people would come to the public house where I was, and sit till a late hour discussing the probabilities of the future.

To this day, the testimony of two independent witnesses counts more than that of two who talked with each other beforehand, and the same holds for the testimony of a witness who did not know the defendant than that of his brother. But how to quantify these intuitions? That was the question that gave rise to degrees of belief expressed as probabilities.

human behaviour lie not only in the past but in man's ability to contemplate the future, or estimate probabilities:

Why couldn't she have this, just enjoy this, without creating obstacles, digging up problems, worrying about mistakes, about tomorrow's? Why let the maybe's, the what if's, the probabilities spoil something so lovely?

To succeed at any ambitious project, you had to assess all of the intricate ramifications of an action, weigh probabilities, share information, organize people, and more.

All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgements of probabilities, and not on certainties.

When we make a measurement on a system, we disturb it, typically by forcing it to interact with a measuring instrument. So Rule 1 does not apply to measurements. This is true not only of measurements, but of any interaction between the system and outside forces. So is there anything special about measurements? Measurements are special because they are where probabilities enter quantum theory.

Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are the most insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.

Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.

It was more reflex than thought. That was my most heedless, least reasonable self down there. It did not weigh risks and probabilities. It didn't deserve to be called decision making. I wasn't proud of it. Still, I felt hot shame and regret as I drove away.

In the froth, space doesn't have a definite structure. It has various probabilities for different shapes and curvatures. It might have a 50 percent chance of being in one shape, a 10 percent chance of being in another, and a 40 percent chance of being in a third form. Because any structure is possible inside the singularity, we say the singularity is constructed from probabilistic foam, or quantum foam. Quantum gravity governs the probabilities for the various foam structures.

We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about mere possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades against perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones.

I'll never cease to admire the skill if not the pragmatism of historians & mythographers who manage to blend a number of small truths & probabilities into one large lie. Which hungry hero worshippers swallow whole, without the reservation of a doubt.

Many Rationals are obsessed with speculative enquiry, so their speech tends to be laced with assumptions and presuppositions, probabilities and possibilities, postulates and premises, hypotheses and theorems.

If particles had mass from the get-go, the theory would have been inconsistent and made nonsensical predictions such as probabilities of energetic particles interacting that were greater than one. Some new ingredient was required to allow for those masses. That

good decision-making is the key to good outcomes. Reject absolute answers and recognize uncertainty. Weigh the probabilities. Don't let uncertainty paralyze you. And evaluate decisions not just on the results, but on how they are made." 1

Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

self-critical thinkers are better at figuring out the contradictory dynamics of evolving situations, more circumspect about their forecasting prowess, more accurate in recalling mistakes, less prone to rationalize those mistakes, more likely to update their beliefs in a timely fashion, and—as a cumulative result of these advantages—better positioned to affix realistic probabilities

Don't worry, boss," HARV said. "I get the feeling that this is only the tip of the iceberg of complications." "HARV, you're a machine. You don't get feelings." "Would it make you feel better if I said I've done a numerical analysis on the probabilities and the results are skewed toward you having more problems with this case?

Fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.

Please don't confuse random with spontaneous. Spontaneous rocks. It emerges from a field of probabilities that you control, maintaining choice and meaning. It involves instinct and urge, hunches and feelings, imagination and belief. Random implies the opposite. Empty and pointless. Maybe or maybe not. Chance and luck.

I do not imagine; detectives aren't allowed to imagine. They note probabilities. I

life is a river and we're all rowing against the flow. On one bank are the probabilities; on the other, the possibilities. It's up to us rowers to choose which bank to hug.