Our Brain Uses Statistics to Calculate Confidence, Make Decisions

Re:Our Brain Uses Statistics to Calculate Confidence, Make D... by haberman on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @05:56PM (#11632246)

> The way to reconcile those claims is to say that many of our statistical/estimation patterns are very bad.

If studies like this one are taken as evidence of a statistical mind, then non-statistical behavior has to be taken as evidence of a non-statistical mind. Otherwise we have a non-falsifiable theory.

Experiment shows mind behaving statistically: "mind is statistical."

Experiment shows mind behaving non-statistically: "mind is statistical, but this scenario exceeds its capabilities."

> which suggests that they might be employing an existing system consciously to get the bugs out.

I should clarify -- I have nothing against the idea that our minds employ statistical methods. In fact I'm sure they must.

I'm opposed to taking that kernel of truth and pushing a reductionist understanding of something extremely complex (the brain).

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Re:Our Brain Uses Statistics to Calculate Confidence, Make D... by taeric on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @06:24PM (#11632425)

Don't confuse non-statistical with non-rational. In particular, people that come to a different conclusion than you could just have different priors in their Bayesian model, but still be statistical in their intake of information.

Though... I think I agree that this weakens the claim sufficiently to not be a notable claim anymore.

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