Philosophy 207 : Probability and Decision (Vailati) Fall 2009

Where to reach me: PH 2212; phone x3376; homepage : http://www.siue.edu/~evailat

Click on “courses” and then on “Probability and Decision” to find this very syllabus.

Office hours: M 5:00-6:00; W 11:00 -12:00 and by appointment if needed.

Course objectives: to introduce the student to the basic concepts of probability, decision, game theory and some of their philosophical implications.

Texts:

1. B. Skirms, Choice and Chance 4^th edition (Wadsworth). Abbreviated as “S”. This is a rental text

2. Material to be down loaded from my homepage.

Course outline

Weeks 1-3: Intro to the course; Download Probability; download Probability Exercises; A bit of theory: download Probability Spaces. Peruse S 109-127. . Download more probability exercises. Here are more exercises

End of week 3: First Quiz.

Weeks 4-5: Conditional Probability and some common pitfalls in using it. For fun, play Let’s Make a Deal. Download Tests. Download Causation Vs. Diagnosis. Watch Ariely’s lecture on irrationality in decision-making.

Week 6: New evidence and the testing of theories. Download Inductive Arguments and The Testing of Theories. Peruse S 151-156. Optional : Continuous Uniform Distribution.

End of week 6: Second Quiz.

Week 7: Two new concepts: Normalization and Probability Density. The use of Probability in Quantum Mechanics. Download Bets. Peruse S 128-135. Optional: two application of probability to genetics: 1 and 2.

End of week 8: Midterm.

Weeks 8-10: Decision, Risk, and some conceptual problems. Download Decision Exercises. Some more exercises. The notion of Utility.

End of week 10: Third Quiz.

Week 11: Classical Game Theory. Some Game Theory exercises. Mini lecture on sequential games.

End of week 12: Fourth Quiz.

Weeks 12-13: Evolutionary Game Theory; some exercises. An application: Rock-Scissors-Paper. How do we actually play: Behavioral Game Theory. Watch Nowak’s lecture at Harvard.

End of Week 14: Fifth Quiz

Week 14: Evolutionary game theory in action: a model for the rise of human cooperation.

Week 15: What is probability?

Course Requirements:

· Regular attendance

· Five quizzes, some take home, some in class, each worth 8% of the course grade. Their dates are given above. No makeup quizzes unless in extreme circumstances.

· Four pop homeworks, handed out in class, each worth 5% of the course grade. No makeup unless in extreme circumstances.

· One midterm, worth 20% of the course grade. For date, see above.

· A final exam, worth 20% of the course grade.

There are 200 possible points in this class. The correspondence with letter grades is as follows: 200-175: A; 174-145: B; 144-120: C; 119-100: D; below 100: F.

Academic Policies

Cheating of any kind will be dealt with according to the draconian CAS guidelines.

Students are responsible for knowing what has been said in class, including announcements.

No phoning, texting, surfing the web or reading of irrelevant material.

Some Advice

If you want to do well in this class, you must put some real work into it. This means studying (not merely glancing at) the material, and doing the exercises. If you have difficulties, come and see me as soon as possible.