tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post3588031567820723772..comments2023-09-27T07:44:19.769-04:00Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: Naturalness is dead. Long live naturalness.Sabine Hossenfelderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-57326329188089927992018-09-28T04:31:15.050-04:002018-09-28T04:31:15.050-04:00No problem, there is no rush.No problem, there is no rush.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-11062259794605265252018-09-27T03:57:10.670-04:002018-09-27T03:57:10.670-04:00Ben,
I want to read your paper before responding,...Ben,<br /><br />I want to read your paper before responding, but I presently don't have the time. I'll get back to it. Sorry about that. Also, thanks for the discussion. Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-88741332976257344202018-09-25T04:38:16.397-04:002018-09-25T04:38:16.397-04:00Sabine,
"I know you cannot calculate priors....Sabine,<br /><br />"I know you cannot calculate priors."<br /><br />Then I am having a hard time understanding your criticism of calculations that refrain from making assumptions about them.<br /><br />"I do not reject Bayesian analysis. I don't know what you even mean by that. It's a way to do calculations, how do you even reject it? What I reject is your interpretation ofBenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-2639289139962441022018-09-24T12:44:11.361-04:002018-09-24T12:44:11.361-04:00Ben,
I know you cannot calculate priors. I do not...Ben,<br /><br />I know you cannot calculate priors. I do not reject Bayesian analysis. I don't know what you even mean by that. It's a way to do calculations, how do you even reject it? What I reject is your interpretation of the results. <br /><br />Look, let us stick with the case of susy. Neither susy nor the standard model predict the value of the Higgs mass. Could you please answer Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-86851850393012314422018-09-24T11:51:43.518-04:002018-09-24T11:51:43.518-04:00"You shouldn't."
Then you reject Ba..."You shouldn't."<br /><br />Then you reject Bayesian analysis completely, because one can never calculate prior probabilities. That is not how it works.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-66787576175428041772018-09-24T10:58:19.668-04:002018-09-24T10:58:19.668-04:00Ben,
"So if we care about one of these thing...Ben,<br /><br /><i>"So if we care about one of these things, why should we ignore the other? Your criticism that the exist of an unknown makes the calculation meaningless applies equally well to consideration of the likelihood ratio. Why should we care about the relative goodness of fit of two models if we cannot compute their prior odds?</i><br /><br />You shouldn't. Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-53913509838973861512018-09-24T09:10:29.864-04:002018-09-24T09:10:29.864-04:00"Second, your analogy is about an absolute pr..."Second, your analogy is about an absolute probability, whereas in the case of naturalness you are already discussing a relative probability."<br /><br />That is a trivial difference. We can reformulate the medical test case as "sick VS not sick", or as "you have disease 1 vs disease 2 vs diseases 3", the argument runs through just the same.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-71625236572699201942018-09-24T09:10:22.016-04:002018-09-24T09:10:22.016-04:00Sabine,
"I am not saying any such thing. To ...Sabine,<br /><br />"I am not saying any such thing. To repeat it once again: You can calculate part of the relative odds and get some number, say 10^4 or what have you. Fine with me. That's a property of the model. I am not saying it's incorrect. It's correct the same way it's correct that the SM w/o susy is sensitive to the UV parameters. No one doubts that this is the case.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-76243022568838194132018-09-24T08:45:15.173-04:002018-09-24T08:45:15.173-04:00Ben,
"I didn't say it is a problem, you ...Ben,<br /><br /><i>"I didn't say it is a problem, you did, you are saying that I need to account for the full model priors."</i><br /><br />I am not saying any such thing. To repeat it once again: You can calculate part of the relative odds and get some number, say 10^4 or what have you. Fine with me. That's a property of the model. I am not saying it's incorrect. It's Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-68730794796066700582018-09-24T07:10:36.324-04:002018-09-24T07:10:36.324-04:00Sabine,
As to your comment:
"Bayesian analys...Sabine,<br />As to your comment:<br /><br />"Bayesian analysis has its uses. This isn't one of them. I don't know what you think is logically incoherent about this."<br /><br />It's logically incoherent because you cannot do Bayesian analysis without accounting for naturalness. It happens automatically, unless you specifically (or accidentally) do the analysis in such a way Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-42277746615166782812018-09-24T06:55:05.192-04:002018-09-24T06:55:05.192-04:00Hi Ben,
Thanks for the reference. I'll have a...Hi Ben,<br /><br />Thanks for the reference. I'll have a look at this.<br /><br />As to your comment:<br /><br /><i>"That is why I say you cannot simultaneously accept Bayesian analysis and also reject naturalness. This is a logically incoherent stance to take."</i><br /><br />Bayesian analysis has its uses. This isn't one of them. I don't know what you think is logically Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-87587731197357006022018-09-24T05:40:40.406-04:002018-09-24T05:40:40.406-04:00Sabine,
As for the math, feel free to read my PhD...Sabine,<br /><br />As for the math, feel free to read my PhD thesis where I go into the full details: https://figshare.com/articles/Epistemic_probability_and_naturalness_in_global_fits_of_supersymmetric_models/4705438Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-91033252606541117532018-09-24T04:36:40.626-04:002018-09-24T04:36:40.626-04:00Sabine,
I enjoy this topic and am generally happy...Sabine,<br /><br />I enjoy this topic and am generally happy to discuss it in an academic fashion at any time, however I don't plan to continue much longer if you are only interested in being belligerent about it. I find discussion to be a much better use of my time than debate.<br /><br />"Your continued accusation that I supposedly don't understand what Bayesian inference is does Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-41126498594617491832018-09-23T00:01:36.544-04:002018-09-23T00:01:36.544-04:00Ben,
Your continued accusation that I supposedly ...Ben,<br /><br />Your continued accusation that I supposedly don't understand what Bayesian inference is does not help your case. I have told you above, please explain why an odds ration of, say 10^-4 that doesn't take into account the full model priors is a problem. Just spell it out. Write it down. Come on, use your brain! Your previous answer was "They are problems if you are a Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-46151091436477136562018-09-22T13:14:22.507-04:002018-09-22T13:14:22.507-04:00Sabine,
By way, I just wanted to make it clear th...Sabine,<br /><br />By way, I just wanted to make it clear that it I intend no insult by suggesting that you don't understand this distinction regarding interpretations of probability correctly. I think that most physicists, most scientists, do not understand this distinction correctly. Philosophy of probability is not part of their general education, and even statistics is generally taught inBenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-7032054291432451192018-09-22T08:05:08.895-04:002018-09-22T08:05:08.895-04:00Sabine,
"Wow, did you just accuse me of not ...Sabine,<br /><br />"Wow, did you just accuse me of not knowing the difference between the Bayesian and frequentist interpretation? Seriously? Here, I also have something that I recommend you read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansplaining<br /><br />I use the frequentist interpretation in both my paper and my book, though in an earlier version I had a long elaboration on the Bayesian case. Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-7476864909145515622018-09-22T00:18:28.616-04:002018-09-22T00:18:28.616-04:00Ben,
Wow, did you just accuse me of not knowing t...Ben,<br /><br />Wow, did you just accuse me of not knowing the difference between the Bayesian and frequentist interpretation? Seriously? Here, I also have something that I recommend you read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansplaining<br /><br />I use the frequentist interpretation in both my paper and my book, though in an earlier version I had a long elaboration on the Bayesian case. It doesn&Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-86555098550477292162018-09-21T09:33:05.790-04:002018-09-21T09:33:05.790-04:00"Then the Bayesian is still misinterpreting t..."Then the Bayesian is still misinterpreting their mathematics. I thought we had agreed above that the quantification of naturalness/finetuning tells you nothing about the probabilty of the theory being correct. So what is the supposed problem?"<br /><br />We agreed on no such thing. It give you plenty of useful and interesting information about the probability of the theory being "Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-67199941675496637002018-09-21T01:11:26.977-04:002018-09-21T01:11:26.977-04:00Ben,
"They are problems if you are a Bayesia...Ben,<br /><br /><i>"They are problems if you are a Bayesian."</i><br /><br />Then the Bayesian is still misinterpreting their mathematics. I thought we had agreed above that the quantification of naturalness/finetuning tells you nothing about the probabilty of the theory being correct. So what is the supposed problem?<br /><br /><i>"I'm not claiming everything is subjective. I Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-3710190412634593292018-09-20T13:04:03.097-04:002018-09-20T13:04:03.097-04:00Sabine,
"Well, first I agree of course that ...Sabine,<br /><br />"Well, first I agree of course that the standard model doesn't explain dark matter, but I don't see how this is relevant."<br /><br />It's relevant because it is evidence that physics beyond the Standard Model exists, and is something worth searching for and trying to model.<br /><br />"Second, I get the impression we are talking past each other. Yes,Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-59374626701550940502018-09-20T12:27:17.120-04:002018-09-20T12:27:17.120-04:00Ben,
Well, first I agree of course that the stand...Ben,<br /><br />Well, first I agree of course that the standard model doesn't explain dark matter, but I don't see how this is relevant.<br /><br />Second, I get the impression we are talking past each other. Yes, the standard model is unnatural. Yes, the Higgs mass is finetuned. I am not saying anything to the contrary - these are just properties of the model. I am saying that this is Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-31260400123239597532018-09-20T10:54:34.878-04:002018-09-20T10:54:34.878-04:00"I have no problem with Bayesian inference. I..."I have no problem with Bayesian inference. I have a problem with people who declare the conclusions mean something that the analysis doesn't support. I would prefer to quantify simplicity by means of calculational complexity."<br /><br />But the analysis does support the notion of naturalness. There have been various papers describing this. I am all for attempting to explicitly Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-8434320000127831102018-09-20T10:54:24.605-04:002018-09-20T10:54:24.605-04:00Sabine,
"If you mean by "subjective ele...Sabine,<br /><br />"If you mean by "subjective elements" the priors for the model assumptions, then you are disagreeing with yourself, for we seem to have agreed that you cannot take those into account. No one has a clue what the prior is for "supersymmetry" hence all other relative calculations that you may be able to get published in a journal these days are utterly Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10105690557558901441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-12236605884122425662018-09-20T09:39:13.548-04:002018-09-20T09:39:13.548-04:00Ben,
"using Bayesian statistics explicitly a...Ben,<br /><br /><i>"using Bayesian statistics explicitly acknowledges the subjective elements of hypothesis testing"</i><br /><br />If you mean by "subjective elements" the priors for the model assumptions, then you are disagreeing with yourself, for we seem to have agreed that you cannot take those into account. No one has a clue what the prior is for "supersymmetry"Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-68793478819220127732018-09-20T07:56:03.611-04:002018-09-20T07:56:03.611-04:00Ben,
"Well most theory people are going to h...Ben,<br /><br /><i>"Well most theory people are going to have some feelings about prior probabilities of various models, subjective though they may be. It seems worthwhile to me to at least provide them with this less subjective piece of information so that they can better prioritize their activities towards the most promising models. Likewise experimentalists have to spend a lot of time andSabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.com