Publisher's Synopsis
Is the degree of probability that an individual holds when betting on a particular outcome really so subjective that, as Frank Ramsey once argued, "objective logical relations" do not exist and that "probability is 'the logic of partial belief"? (WK 2012a) This subjective interpretation of probability can be contrasted with an objective view by John Keynes, who argued instead that "logical probabilities are conceived to be objective, logical relations between propositions (or sentences), and hence not to depend in any way upon belief". (WK 2012) Contrary to these opposing interpretations (and other ones as will be discussed in the book), probability (in relation to both objectivity and subjectivity) are neither possible (nor impossible) nor desirable (or undesirable) to the extent that the respective ideologues (on different sides) would like us to believe. Surely, this questioning of the opposing interpretations on probability does not entail that probability is useless, or that those fields related to probability (like "statistics, finance, gambling, science, artificial intelligence/machine learning and philosophy") are not worth studying. Needless to say, neither of these extreme views is reasonable. Instead, this book offers an alternative way to understand the future of probability, especially in the dialectic context of objectivity and subjectivity -- while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favouring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). More specifically, this book offers a new theory (that is, the interpretivist theory of probability) in order to go beyond the existing approaches in a novel way. To understand this, the book is organised in four chapters. This seminal project will fundamentally change the way that we think about probability in relation to objectivity and subjectivity from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its "post-human" fate.
