Bayesian Inference and the Principle of Maximum Entropy

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Foley, Duncan K., Scharfenaker, Ellis
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866913434737573888
author Foley, Duncan K.
Scharfenaker, Ellis
author_facet Foley, Duncan K.
Scharfenaker, Ellis
contents Bayes' theorem incorporates distinct types of information through the likelihood and prior. Direct observations of state variables enter the likelihood and modify posterior probabilities through consistent updating. Information in terms of expected values of state variables modify posterior probabilities by constraining prior probabilities to be consistent with the information. Constraints on the prior can be exact, limiting hypothetical frequency distributions to only those that satisfy the constraints, or be approximate, allowing residual deviations from the exact constraint to some degree of tolerance. When the model parameters and constraint tolerances are known, posterior probability follows directly from Bayes' theorem. When parameters and tolerances are unknown a prior for them must be specified. When the system is close to statistical equilibrium the computation of posterior probabilities is simplified due to the concentration of the prior on the maximum entropy hypothesis. The relationship between maximum entropy reasoning and Bayes' theorem from this point of view is that maximum entropy reasoning is a special case of Bayesian inference with a constrained entropy-favoring prior.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_13029
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bayesian Inference and the Principle of Maximum Entropy
Foley, Duncan K.
Scharfenaker, Ellis
Methodology
Bayes' theorem incorporates distinct types of information through the likelihood and prior. Direct observations of state variables enter the likelihood and modify posterior probabilities through consistent updating. Information in terms of expected values of state variables modify posterior probabilities by constraining prior probabilities to be consistent with the information. Constraints on the prior can be exact, limiting hypothetical frequency distributions to only those that satisfy the constraints, or be approximate, allowing residual deviations from the exact constraint to some degree of tolerance. When the model parameters and constraint tolerances are known, posterior probability follows directly from Bayes' theorem. When parameters and tolerances are unknown a prior for them must be specified. When the system is close to statistical equilibrium the computation of posterior probabilities is simplified due to the concentration of the prior on the maximum entropy hypothesis. The relationship between maximum entropy reasoning and Bayes' theorem from this point of view is that maximum entropy reasoning is a special case of Bayesian inference with a constrained entropy-favoring prior.
title Bayesian Inference and the Principle of Maximum Entropy
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.13029