Description:

Title: On the Judy Benjamin Problem

Abstract: One well-known objection to the principle of maximum entropy is the so-called Judy Benjamin problem, first introduced by van Fraassen (1981). The problem turns on the apparently puzzling fact that, on the basis of information relating an event’s conditional probability, the maximum entropy distribution will almost always assign to the event conditionalized on a probability strictly less than that assigned to it by the uniform distribution. In this talk, I will give a brief introduction to the principle of maximum entropy and present an analysis of the Judy Benjamin problem that can help to make sense of this seemingly odd feature of maximum entropy inference. In addition to helping to further our understanding of the true epistemological grounds of the principle of maximum entropy, my analysis will also shed light on its misunderstood relationship to the Laplacean principle of insufficient reason.