HKU IDS Interdisciplinary Seminar Series:
Exchangeability and Algorithmic Randomness: A New Proof of the Principal Principle
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Abstract
We explore the role of algorithmic randomness and exchangeability in defining probabilistic laws and their implications for chance-credence principles like the Principal Principle. Building on our previous work on probabilistic constraint laws (arXiv:2303.01411), we develop a new approach to proving the Principal Principle. This proof avoids circularity by grounding it in algorithmic randomness, frequency constraints, and exchangeable priors. Our approach establishes a direct link between long-run frequencies and short-term credences, clarifying the epistemic foundations of chance, typicality, and probabilistic laws. (Joint work with Jeffrey A. Barrett.)
Speaker
Prof Eddy Chen
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Professor Eddy Chen is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), a fellow of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics, and an affiliated faculty member of the UCSD Chinese Studies Program. His primary research interests include philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, and metaphysics. He also explores the foundations of AI, philosophy of mind, decision theory, formal epistemology, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of religion, and Chinese philosophy. Additionally, he has a side interest in using films to popularize philosophical ideas. Currently, he is co-writing a screenplay about a time-travel romance, inspired by a fascinating article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP). Professor Eddy Chen won the Popper Prize for his 2021 BJPS paper on quantum mechanics in a time-asymmetric universe. (Click here for a short summary.) His works on laws of nature have been published in Nature, featured as a cover story of New Scientist, discussed in Scientific American, and awarded an APA Public Philosophy Op-Ed Prize. His paper on the vagueness of physical laws (The Philosophical Review) was selected by The Philosopher's Annual as "one of the ten best articles in philosophy from 2022." He has participated in a brief interview with the American Philosophical Association (APA) Blog, a longer interview with Richard Marshall at 3:16AM, and a YouTube podcast on laws of nature with Barry Loewer and Curt Jaimungal. He serves as Co-PI of a new Templeton grant on quantum foundations and was a collaborator on a previous project on the quantum arrows of time. Professor Eddy Chen earned a Ph.D. in philosophy, an M.Sc. in mathematics, and a graduate certificate in cognitive science from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, in 2019. For full biography of Prof. Chen, please refer to: https://www.eddykemingchen.net/
Moderator
Prof Boris BABIC
Associate Professor, HKU IDS, Dept of Philosophy & Law(by courtesy), HKU Professor Boris Babic is HKU-100 Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong, jointly appointed in the Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science, the Department of Philosophy, and (by courtesy) the Faculty of Law, from Fall 2023. He also serves as an occasional visiting professor in the Decision Sciences department at INSEAD. Professor Babic received a JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, an MS in Statistics and a PhD in Philosophy, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He also practiced law at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP in Los Angeles, USA. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Professor Babic’s primary research interests are in Bayesian inference and decision-making, ethics, law, and policy of artificial intelligence and machine learning, especially in medical applications. His research has been published extensively in leading journals such as Science, Nature Machine Intelligence, Nature Digital Medicine, and the Harvard Business Review. Professor Babic will be on leave from the University of Toronto, where he is Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics and the Department of Philosophy and a faculty fellow of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology & Society. For full biography of Prof. Babic, please refer to: https://datascience.hku.hk/people/boris-babic/
Moderator
Professor Yi Ma is a Chair Professor in the Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science (HKU IDS) and Department of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong. He took up the Directorship of HKU IDS on January 12, 2023. He is also a Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published about 60 journal papers, 120 conference papers, and three textbooks in computer vision, generalized principal component analysis, and high-dimensional data analysis.
Professor Ma’s research interests cover computer vision, high-dimensional data analysis, and intelligent systems. For full biography of Professor Ma, please refer to: https://datascience.hku.hk/people/yi-ma/
