Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T05:05:34.960Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Temporally Asymmetric Inference in a Markov Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Wisconsin
*
‡Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A model of a Markov process is presented in which observing the present state of a system is asymmetrically related to inferring the system's future and inferring its past. A likelihood inference about the system's past state, based on observing its present state, is justified no matter what the parameter values in the model happen to be. In contrast, a probability inference of the system's future state, based on observing its present state, requires further information about the parameter values.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 398 - 410
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I am grateful to Martin Barrett, Ellery Eells, Malcolm Forster, and an anonymous referee for valuable comments.

References

Barrett, M. and Sober, E. (1991), “Is Entropy Relevant to the Asymmetry Between Retrodiction and Prediction?”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42.Google Scholar
Earman, J. (1974), “An Attempt to Add a Little Direction to ‘The Problem of the Direction of Time‘”, Philosophy of Science 41: 15–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feller, W. (1968), An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications. 3rd ed. New York: Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Grünbaum, A. (1963), Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Horwich, P. (1987), Asymmetries in Time; Problems in the Philosophy of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1956), The Direction of Time. Edited by Reichenbach, M. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1984), Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1988a), “The Principle of the Common Cause”, in J. H. Fetzer (ed.), Probability and Causality; Essays in Honor of Wesley C. Salmon. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 211–228.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1988b), Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1989), “Independent Evidence about a Common Cause”, Philosophy of Science 56: 275–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar