Great moments in science: measuring incoherence

Improbable Research  - People can sometimes be (or at least come across as) incoherent. Raising the question, is it possible to measure a person’s incoherence, absolutely? For answers, turn to a prominent investigator in the field, Liam Kofi Bright who is a 3rd year Philosophy PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University, US, and who has written a paper on the subject, entitled: Measuring Degrees of Incoherence:

“I discuss the construction of ‘measures of incoherence’. These measures allow theorists to give a precise sense to the idea that agents can violate norms of probabilistic reasoning more or less severely. I will discuss previous attempts at providing such a measure, the reasons one might want such a measure, and how those objectives place different (and sometimes conflicting) constraints on the character of the measure one ought pick. I argue that degree of incoherence is best viewed as purpose-dependent. That is to say, there is no absolute measure of incoherence but, rather, how incoherent we ought view a person depends on the purpose for which we have decided to evaluate them.”