Re: Boy Scouts make people nervous

On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 19:05:20 -0500, "David L. Burkhead"
<dburkhuad@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

hal@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 22:51:49 GMT, "David L. Burkhead"
<dburkhuad@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


You keep conflating number of states with number of outcomes.
The two are not the same. It's the number of states that determine
probability, not the number of outcomes.

And no more irrelevent examples. Keep it to the two outcome model
like we have been discussing.

Most of the examples I have given have been "two outcome models."
That you don't like them really doesn't matter. Even with a coin
flip you have (assuming the coin is flipped onto a flat surface
rather than caught in the air which would have a different set of
controlling variables but for which the same principles would apply)
three continuous (on the macroscopic scale) variables that mostly
determine the result (angle between coin and surface at instant of
contact, angular velocity of coin about this point, and
translational velocity of coin at that instant). There are an
infinite (for practical purposes) number of ways the coin could
strike the ground. The vast majority of them will land the coin in
one of two final orientations but that is fundamentally no different
from the splitting a continuous "state" into two "bins" (as in the
pendulum example. That you think it is just demonstrates your own
lack of understanding of the subject.

Wow. Talk about more overcomplicating bull***, followed by yet
another ad hominem. A coin toss has an infinate number number of
possible outcomes, eh? Yea, right. Have any supporting documentation
on that one? It's a new one to me. I'ld love to see that one in
writing somewhere.

Once again you consider very basic stuff "overcomplication." I have not
even broken into material covered in the 4th week of the course yet.

It is if it's an irrelevent obfuscation of an otherwise simple
problem.


That you do not understand the subject is _not_ an ad hominem.

No, you don't understand the subject because absolutely NONE of your
bogus examples are in any way relevent to your proof. None. The are
thinly veiled attempts at pedantry and showing off, in order to try to
invalidate the accuracy of a very simple conclusion.


As for number of possible outcomes, just consider that every path the
coin can take is a possible outcome. We are only "binning" those outcomes
in terms of one of two final resting states.

Irrelevent. So coin tosses are all binned into two outcomes. Two
outcomes with equal likelihood of occurance. *** me, ain't that
amazing? What else would be binned into only two outcomes of equal
liklihood of occurance? Anything with only two possible outcomes.
Anything, unless we have enough information to conclude one is more
likely to occur than the other. Ain't that neat?


Probabilities involving discrete events and regions within
continuous functions are fundamentally the same.

Uh, yea, so? More bull***.

Correct. Your attempt to exclude examples based on whether the
functions are discrete or continuous is bull***. There is no fundamental
difference between those two cases.

Often, whether a case is treated as
one or the other is only a matter of which is easier to handle
mathmatically and it's not uncommon to switch representations back
and forth in the course of a single problem (use a discrete
formulation to define your density of states, then switch to
continuous because the integral is easier to solve than a summation
of large numbers of terms).

Wow. More completely irrelevent bull***. At least you're
consistent.

It's completely relevant to your attempt to exclude examples based on
whether they are discrete or continuous at a particular point in their
history. In principle you can work probability problems either way and get
the same answer. In practice, it often gets impractical to do the very
large summations that the discrete method requires.

An occurance of only two possible outcomes is not possibly a
continuous function, so once again I call you on your bull***, fool.

Hal
.

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