Inductive probability

Inductive probability attempts to give the probability of future events based on past events. It is the basis for inductive reasoning, and gives the mathematical basis for learning and the perception of patterns. It is a source of knowledge about the world.There are three sources of knowledge: inference, communication, and deduction. Communication relays information found using other methods. Deduction establishes new facts based on existing facts. Only inference establishes new facts from data.The basis of inference is Bayes' theorem. But this theorem is sometimes hard to apply and understand. The simpler method to understand inference is in terms of quantities of information.Information describing the world is written in a language. For example a simple mathematical language of propositions may be chosen. Sentences may be written down in this language as strings of characters. But in the computer it is possible to encode these sentences as strings of bits (1s and 0s). Then the language may be encoded so that the most commonly used sentences are the shortest. This internal language implicitly represents probabilities of statements.Occam's razor says the ""simplest theory, consistent with the data is most likely to be correct"". The ""simplest theory"" is interpreted as the representation of the theory written in this internal language. The theory with the shortest encoding in this internal language is most likely to be correct.