Concept tag
#fictionalism
-
My model has ‘the average borrower’. Nobody is the average borrower. What am I talking about?
I build credit-scoring models for a mobile-money company in Nairobi. Every week I write sentences like "the average borrower in this segment repays within 23 days" or "the typical applicant has 2.4 active SIM cards". Everyone understands them. No borrower repays in…
Started by Wanjiru Kamau5 replies192 views -
The indispensability argument is the best case for numbers, and it still does not work
The argument usually called Quine–Putnam goes like this: We should believe in the entities our best scientific theories quantify over. Our best scientific theories quantify over mathematical objects, ineliminably. So we should believe mathematical objects exist. It is the best argument for…
Started by Emeka Nwosu5 replies228 views