FUZZINESS VS. PROBABILITY

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Abstract
Fuzziness is explored as an alternative to randomness for describing uncertainty. The new sets-as-points geometric view of fuzzy sets is developed. This view identifies a fuzzy set with a point in a unit hypercube and a nonfuzzy set with a vertex of the cube. Paradoxes of two-valued logic and set theory, such as Russell's paradox, correspond to the midpoint of the fuzzy cube. The fundamental questions of fuzzy theory—How fuzzy is a fuzzy set? How much is one fuzzy set a subset of another?—are answered geometrically with the Fuzzy Entropy Theorem, the Fuzzy Subsethood Theorem, and the Entropy-Subsethood Theorem. A new geometric proof of the Subsethood Theorem is given, a corollary of which is that the apparently probabilistic relative frequency nA /N turns out to be the deterministic subsethood S(X, A), the degree to which the sample space X is contained in its subset A. So the frequency of successful trials is viewed as the degree to which all trials are successful. Recent Bayesian polemics against fuzzy theory are examined in light of the new sets-as-points theorems.

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