From: johannes 
Newsgroups: uk.legal uk.finance
Subject: Re: Lottery syndicate - is this guy breaking any laws?
Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:27:43 GMT



johannes wrote:
> 
> Tim wrote:
> >
> > > "Tim" wrote:
> > >> Are you seriously trying to suggest that, before the mathematics of
> > >> probability had been invented, and so no-one could "assess the
> > >> probability" of anything, that the probability of everything was zero?!
> > >> Don't be silly...
> > >
> > "johannes" wrote
> > > I didn't say that. Mathematics of probability
> > > allow you to set up scenarios of various states of
> > > information, i.e. also what the probability *would*
> > > have been if this and this information was known.
> >
> > Exactly!
> > Previously, you said:  "The probability of something, which is
> > not imaginable, must be zero by definition, yet not impossible."
> > Which is rubbish.
> 
> No it's not rubbish. You have a false vision of probability as
> absolute and universal, this is not the case. As I explained at
> length, probability is tied to a vantage point. If something is
> not imagined or anticipated at a given point in time, then the
> probability is zero by definition. (hindsight not allowed).


Further proof using Bayes's Theorem:

P(A|B) = P(B|A)*P(A)/P(B)

Hence you can have P(A) = 0 while P(B) > 0  QED.