Results for 'Sylvia9 Wenmackers'

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  1. New theory about old evidence. A framework for open-minded Bayesianism.Sylvia9 Wenmackers & Jan-Willem Romeijn - 2016 - Synthese 193 (4).
    We present a conservative extension of a Bayesian account of confirmation that can deal with the problem of old evidence and new theories. So-called open-minded Bayesianism challenges the assumption—implicit in standard Bayesianism—that the correct empirical hypothesis is among the ones currently under consideration. It requires the inclusion of a catch-all hypothesis, which is characterized by means of sets of probability assignments. Upon the introduction of a new theory, the former catch-all is decomposed into a new empirical hypothesis and a new (...)
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  2.  18
    Children of the Cosmos. Presenting a Toy Model of Science with a Supporting Cast of Infinitesimals.Sylvia9 Wenmackers - 2016 - In Anthony Aguirre, Brendan Foster & Zeeya Merali (eds.), Trick or Truth?: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics. Cham: Springer.
    Mathematics may seem unreasonably effective in the natural sciences, in particular in physics. In this essay, I argue that this judgment can be attributed, at least in part, to selection effects. In support of this central claim, I offer four elements. The first element is that we are creatures that evolved within this Universe, and that our pattern finding abilities are selected by this very environment. The second element is that our mathematics—although not fully constrained by the natural world—is strongly (...)
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  3. Fair infinite lotteries.Sylvia Wenmackers & Leon Horsten - 2013 - Synthese 190 (1):37-61.
    This article discusses how the concept of a fair finite lottery can best be extended to denumerably infinite lotteries. Techniques and ideas from non-standard analysis are brought to bear on the problem.
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  4. Philosophy of Probability: Foundations, Epistemology, and Computation.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2011 - Dissertation, University of Groningen
    This dissertation is a contribution to formal and computational philosophy. -/- In the first part, we show that by exploiting the parallels between large, yet finite lotteries on the one hand and countably infinite lotteries on the other, we gain insights in the foundations of probability theory as well as in epistemology. Case 1: Infinite lotteries. We discuss how the concept of a fair finite lottery can best be extended to denumerably infinite lotteries. The solution boils down to the introduction (...)
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  5.  79
    Ultralarge lotteries: Analyzing the Lottery Paradox using non-standard analysis.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2013 - Journal of Applied Logic 11 (4):452-467.
    A popular way to relate probabilistic information to binary rational beliefs is the Lockean Thesis, which is usually formalized in terms of thresholds. This approach seems far from satisfactory: the value of the thresholds is not well-specified and the Lottery Paradox shows that the model violates the Conjunction Principle. We argue that the Lottery Paradox is a symptom of a more fundamental and general problem, shared by all threshold-models that attempt to put an exact border on something that is intrinsically (...)
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  6.  42
    Vieri Benci and Mauro Di Nasso. How to Measure the Infinite: Mathematics with Infinite and Infinitesimal Numbers.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2022 - Philosophia Mathematica 30 (1):130-137.
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  7. The Snow White problem.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2019 - Synthese 196 (10):4137-4153.
    The Snow White problem is introduced to demonstrate how learning something of which one could not have learnt the opposite (due to observer selection bias) can change an agent’s probability assignment. This helps us to analyse the Sleeping Beauty problem, which is deconstructed as a combinatorial engine and a subjective wrapper. The combinatorial engine of the problem is analogous to Bertrand’s boxes paradox and can be solved with standard probability theory. The subjective wrapper is clarified using the Snow White problem. (...)
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  8.  19
    Critical Studies/Book Reviews.Sylvia Wenmackers - forthcoming - Philosophia Mathematica.
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  9. Lost in Space and Time: A Quest for Conceptual Spaces in Physics.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2019 - In Peter Gärdenfors, Antti Hautamäki, Frank Zenker & Mauri Kaipainen (eds.), Conceptual Spaces: Elaborations and Applications. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Verlag.
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  10. Probability of inconsistencies in theory revision.Sylvia Wenmackers, Danny E. P. Vanpoucke & Igor Douven - 2012 - European Physical Journal B 85 (1):44 (15).
    We present a model for studying communities of epistemically interacting agents who update their belief states by averaging the belief states of other agents in the community. The agents in our model have a rich belief state, involving multiple independent issues which are interrelated in such a way that they form a theory of the world. Our main goal is to calculate the probability for an agent to end up in an inconsistent belief state due to updating. To that end, (...)
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  11. Inference to the Best Explanation versus Bayes’s Rule in a Social Setting.Igor Douven & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (2).
    This article compares inference to the best explanation with Bayes’s rule in a social setting, specifically, in the context of a variant of the Hegselmann–Krause model in which agents not only update their belief states on the basis of evidence they receive directly from the world, but also take into account the belief states of their fellow agents. So far, the update rules mentioned have been studied only in an individualistic setting, and it is known that in such a setting (...)
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  12.  66
    Measuring Graded Membership: The Case of Color.Igor Douven, Sylvia Wenmackers, Yasmina Jraissati & Lieven Decock - 2017 - Cognitive Science 41 (3):686-722.
    This paper considers Kamp and Partee's account of graded membership within a conceptual spaces framework and puts the account to the test in the domain of colors. Three experiments are reported that are meant to determine, on the one hand, the regions in color space where the typical instances of blue and green are located and, on the other hand, the degrees of blueness/greenness of various shades in the blue–green region as judged by human observers. From the locations of the (...)
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  13. Rethinking Gibbard’s Riverboat Argument.Karolina Krzyżanowska, Sylvia Wenmackers & Igor Douven - 2014 - Studia Logica 102 (4):771-792.
    According to the Principle of Conditional Non-Contradiction (CNC), conditionals of the form “If p, q” and “If p, not q” cannot both be true, unless p is inconsistent. This principle is widely regarded as an adequacy constraint on any semantics that attributes truth conditions to conditionals. Gibbard has presented an example of a pair of conditionals that, in the context he describes, appear to violate CNC. He concluded from this that conditionals lack truth conditions. We argue that this conclusion is (...)
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  14.  43
    Uniform probability in cosmology.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 101 (C):48-60.
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  15.  7
    Remote possibilities in branching time structures.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2024 - Synthese 204 (2):1-28.
    To analyse contingent propositions, this paper investigates how branching time structures can be combined with probability theory. In particular, it considers assigning infinitesimal probabilities—available in non-Archimedean probability theory—to individual histories. This allows us to introduce the concept of ‘remote possibility’ as a new modal notion between ‘impossibility’ and ‘appreciable possibility’. The proposal is illustrated by applying it to a future contingent and a historical counterfactual concerning an infinite sequence of coin tosses. The latter is a toy model that is used (...)
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  16. Degrees of Freedom.Pieter Thyssen & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2021 - Synthese 198 (11):10207-10235.
    Human freedom is in tension with nomological determinism and with statistical determinism. The goal of this paper is to answer both challenges. Four contributions are made to the free-will debate. First, we propose a classification of scientific theories based on how much freedom they allow. We take into account that indeterminism comes in different degrees and that both the laws and the auxiliary conditions can place constraints. A scientific worldview pulls towards one end of this classification, while libertarianism pulls towards (...)
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  17. (1 other version)Infinitesimal Probabilities.Vieri Benci, Leon Horsten & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (2):509-552.
    Non-Archimedean probability functions allow us to combine regularity with perfect additivity. We discuss the philosophical motivation for a particular choice of axioms for a non-Archimedean probability theory and answer some philosophical objections that have been raised against infinitesimal probabilities in general. _1_ Introduction _2_ The Limits of Classical Probability Theory _2.1_ Classical probability functions _2.2_ Limitations _2.3_ Infinitesimals to the rescue? _3_ NAP Theory _3.1_ First four axioms of NAP _3.2_ Continuity and conditional probability _3.3_ The final axiom of NAP (...)
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  18. Models and simulations in material science: two cases without error bars.Sylvia Wenmackers & Danny Vanpoucke - 2012 - Statistica Neerlandica 66 (3):339–355.
    We discuss two research projects in material science in which the results cannot be stated with an estimation of the error: a spectroscopic ellipsometry study aimed at determining the orientation of DNA molecules on diamond and a scanning tunneling microscopy study of platinum-induced nanowires on germanium. To investigate the reliability of the results, we apply ideas from the philosophy of models in science. Even if the studies had reported an error value, the trustworthiness of the result would not depend on (...)
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  19.  19
    Herkansing voor infinitesimalen?Sylvia Wenmackers - 2018 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 110 (4):491-510.
    A New Chance for Infinitesimals? This article discusses the connection between the Zenonian paradox of magnitude and probability on infinite sample spaces. Two important premises in the Zenonian argument are: the Archimedean axiom, which excludes infinitesimal magnitudes, and perfect additivity. Standard probability theory uses real numbers that satisfy the Archimedean axiom, but it rejects perfect additivity. The additivity requirement for real-valued probabilities is limited to countably infinite collections of mutually incompatible events. A consequence of this is that there exists no (...)
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  20.  25
    Zekerheid in de waarschijnlijkheidsleer.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2015 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 107 (2):167-172.
    Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.
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  21. Non-Archimedean Probability.Vieri Benci, Leon Horsten & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2013 - Milan Journal of Mathematics 81 (1):121-151.
    We propose an alternative approach to probability theory closely related to the framework of numerosity theory: non-Archimedean probability (NAP). In our approach, unlike in classical probability theory, all subsets of an infinite sample space are measurable and only the empty set gets assigned probability zero (in other words: the probability functions are regular). We use a non-Archimedean field as the range of the probability function. As a result, the property of countable additivity in Kolmogorov’s axiomatization of probability is replaced by (...)
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  22.  27
    Ballonnen boven de filosofische freesmachine.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2016 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 108 (2):245-249.
    Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.
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  23.  45
    Demystifying the Mystery Room.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2019 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 8 (2):86-95.
    The Mystery Room problem is a close variant of the Mystery Bag scenario. It is argued here that dealing with this problem requires no revision of the Bayesian formalism, since there exists a solution to this problem in which indexicals or demonstratives play no essential role. The solution does require labels, which are internal to the probabilistic model. While there needs to be a connection between at least one label and one indexical or demonstrative, that connection is external to the (...)
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  24. Ultralarge and infinite lotteries.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2012 - In B. Van Kerkhove, T. Libert, G. Vanpaemel & P. Marage (eds.), Logic, Philosophy and History of Science in Belgium II (Proceedings of the Young Researchers Days 2010). Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten.
    By exploiting the parallels between large, yet finite lotteries on the one hand and countably infinite lotteries on the other, we gain insights in the foundations of probability theory as well as in epistemology. We solve the 'adding problems' that occur in these two contexts using a similar strategy, based on non-standard analysis.
     
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  25. Inferential Conditionals and Evidentiality.K. Krzyżanowska, S. Wenmackers & I. Douven - 2013 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 22 (3):315-334.
    Many conditionals seem to convey the existence of a link between their antecedent and consequent. We draw on a recently proposed typology of conditionals to argue for an old philosophical idea according to which the link is inferential in nature. We show that the proposal has explanatory force by presenting empirical results on the evidential meaning of certain English and Dutch modal expressions.
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  26.  34
    Moral Bookkeeping.Igor Douven, Frank Hindriks & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2023 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10.
    There is widespread agreement among philosophers about the Mens Rea Asymmetry (MRA), according to which praise requires intent, whereas blame does not. However, there is evidence showing that MRA is descriptively inadequate. We hypothesize that the violations of MRA found in the experimental literature are due to what we call “moral compositionality,” by which we mean that people evaluate the component parts of a moral problem separately and then reach an overall verdict by aggregating the verdicts on the component parts. (...)
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  27.  51
    Conditionals, inference, and evidentiality.Karolina Krzyżanowska, Sylvia Wenmackers, Igor Douven & Sara Verbrugge - 2012 - Proceedings of the Logic and Cognition Workshop at ESSLLI 2012; Opole, Poland, 13-17 August, 2012 - Vol. 883 of CEUR Workshop Proceedings.
    At least many conditionals seem to convey the existence of a link between their antecedent and consequent. We draw on a recently proposed typology of conditionals to revive an old philosophical idea according to which the link is inferential in nature. We show that the proposal has explanatory force by presenting empirical results on two Dutch linguistic markers.
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  28. Axioms for Non-Archimedean Probability (NAP).Vieri Benci, Leon Horsten & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2012 - In De Vuyst J. & Demey L. (eds.), Future Directions for Logic; Proceedings of PhDs in Logic III - Vol. 2 of IfColog Proceedings. College Publications.
    In this contribution, we focus on probabilistic problems with a denumerably or non-denumerably infinite number of possible outcomes. Kolmogorov (1933) provided an axiomatic basis for probability theory, presented as a part of measure theory, which is a branch of standard analysis or calculus. Since standard analysis does not allow for non-Archimedean quantities (i.e. infinitesimals), we may call Kolmogorov's approach "Archimedean probability theory". We show that allowing non-Archimedean probability values may have considerable epistemological advantages in the infinite case. The current paper (...)
     
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  29.  92
    Infinite regress in decision theory, philosophy of science, and formal epistemology.Jeanne Peijnenburg & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2014 - Synthese 191 (4):627-628.
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  30.  44
    Degrees of riskiness, falsifiability, and truthlikeness: A neo-Popperian account applicable to probabilistic theories.Leander Vignero & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):11729-11764.
    In this paper, we take a fresh look at three Popperian concepts: riskiness, falsifiability, and truthlikeness of scientific hypotheses or theories. First, we make explicit the dimensions that underlie the notion of riskiness. Secondly, we examine if and how degrees of falsifiability can be defined, and how they are related to various dimensions of the concept of riskiness as well as the experimental context. Thirdly, we consider the relation of riskiness to truthlikeness. Throughout, we pay special attention to probabilistic theories (...)
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  31. Knowledge and Approximate Knowledge.Lieven Decock, Igor Douven, Christoph Kelp & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (6):1129-1150.
    Traditionally, epistemologists have held that only truth-related factors matter in the question of whether a subject can be said to know a proposition. Various philosophers have recently departed from this doctrine by claiming that the answer to this question also depends on practical concerns. They take this move to be warranted by the fact that people’s knowledge attributions appear sensitive to contextual variation, in particular variation due to differing stakes. This paper proposes an alternative explanation of the aforementioned fact, one (...)
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  32.  19
    Impedimetric, diamond-based immmunosensor for the detection of C-reactive protein.V. Vermeeren, L. Grieten, N. Vanden Bon, N. Bijnens, Sylvia Wenmackers, S. D. Janssens, K. Haenen, Patrick Hermann Wagner & Luc Michiels - 2011 - Sensors and Actuators B, Chemical 157 (1):130 - 138.
    The high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases demands a reliable and sensitive risk assessment technique. In order to develop a fast and label-free immunosensor for C-reactive protein, a risk factor for this condition, anti-CRP antibodies were physically adsorbed to the hydrogen -terminated surface of nanocrystalline diamond. An Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay reference technique showed that this was a suitable substrate for antibody-antigen recognition reactions. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy was used to electronically detect CRP recognition. The specificity of the immunosensor was demonstrated by incubation (...)
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  33.  85
    On the truth-convergence of open-minded bayesianism.Tom F. Sterkenburg & Rianne de Heide - 2022 - Review of Symbolic Logic 15 (1):64-100.
    Wenmackers and Romeijn (2016) formalize ideas going back to Shimony (1970) and Putnam (1963) into an open-minded Bayesian inductive logic, that can dynamically incorporate statistical hypotheses proposed in the course of the learning process. In this paper, we show that Wenmackers and Romeijn’s proposal does not preserve the classical Bayesian consistency guarantee of merger with the true hypothesis. We diagnose the problem, and offer a forward-looking open-minded Bayesians that does preserve a version of this guarantee.
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  34. Inference to the Best Explanation in Uncertain Evidential Situations.Borut Trpin & Max Pellert - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (4):977-1001.
    It has recently been argued that a non-Bayesian probabilistic version of inference to the best explanation (IBE*) has a number of advantages over Bayesian conditionalization (Douven [2013]; Douven and Wenmackers [2017]). We investigate how IBE* could be generalized to uncertain evidential situations and formulate a novel updating rule IBE**. We then inspect how it performs in comparison to its Bayesian counterpart, Jeffrey conditionalization (JC), in a number of simulations where two agents, each updating by IBE** and JC, respectively, try (...)
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  35. Indeterminacy of fair infinite lotteries.Philip Kremer - 2014 - Synthese 191 (8):1757-1760.
    In ‘Fair Infinite Lotteries’ (FIL), Wenmackers and Horsten use non-standard analysis to construct a family of nicely-behaved hyperrational-valued probability measures on sets of natural numbers. Each probability measure in FIL is determined by a free ultrafilter on the natural numbers: distinct free ultrafilters determine distinct probability measures. The authors reply to a worry about a consequent ‘arbitrariness’ by remarking, “A different choice of free ultrafilter produces a different ... probability function with the same standard part but infinitesimal differences.” They (...)
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  36. A Potential Problem for Alpha-Theory.Jeremy Gwiazda - unknown
    In a recent paper, Sylvia Wenmackers and Leon Horsten discuss how the concept of a fair infinite lottery can best be extended to denumerably infinite lotteries. Their paper uses and builds on the alpha-theory of Vieri Benci and Mauro Di Nasso. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a potential problem for alpha-theory.
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