Sunday, April 17, 2016

Varieties of First-Person Testimony

"an article published in the Philosophical Transactions for October 1699 offered an attempt to formulate a mathematical model for assessing the value of eyewitness accounts. . . . After some impressive calculations, he arrives at a ratio of 5/6ths believability per person"

One sixth of what I thought I saw
Could be confirmed by other methods
Devised by other seers. Five sixths
Was either false or disreputable 
Or impossible to confirm. I thought

I saw a strange little man with a beard
And a limp pass through my world
Almost unnoticed by those who should
Have thought to ask themselves, what is that
Out-of-place shadow shape doing here?

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