Probabilistic thinking helps avoid type errors

When our beliefs are quantitative ( a belief is a degree of certainty|probabilities) rather than qualitative (binary true or false), we are able to separate and identify what level our beliefs represent more easily.

For example, I believe snow is white with some probability, say 90%. I also may believe that “with 90% probability, snow is white” is one of my beliefs with a probability of 99.9% (because I have high confidence that I understand my own thoughts). Since we aren’t assigning binary values to these concepts, it is easier for us to see that we have different certainties about these concepts.

(One can get into Deductive thinking here, since words are pointers to concept-space and if one believes that the concept-space for “thoughts” and the set of all things I think are the exact same, or something like that. If we realize we are only thinking deductively, then it likely will serve us to focus on outcomes not definitions.)