Objective Evidence (E0)
Objective Evidence is the evidential support available in the world before an agent interprets it.
The Target
Objective Evidence (E0) is the model target: the support that exists independent of a particular agent perception. It is not omniscience, and it is not always directly accessible. It represents the evidential reality the agent is trying to track.
Why E0 Matters
Without E0, all we have are perspectives. The model needs a target because some interpretations are better than others. Evidence can be missed, distorted, hidden, or misunderstood. E0 gives us a way to talk about those failures.
Humility About E0
E0 is often estimated rather than possessed. In real life, no person usually holds the whole evidential field. The model therefore uses E0 as a conceptual anchor, not a claim that any observer has perfect access.
Keeping the Target Humble
Objective Evidence (E0) does not mean that someone has perfect access to the facts. It means that the world constrains better and worse interpretations. A blood test, a timestamp, a replication record, a leaked document, or a base rate can all exist independently of whether a particular agent handles them well.
The humility is important. E0 is often reconstructed through methods, institutions, and cross-checks. The model needs E0 as a target, but it also needs modesty about how partial any human access to that target may be.
Adjacent References
These are starting points rather than exhaustive citations. They connect this page to nearby work in probability, calibration, cognitive bias, and social epistemology.
- |Thomas Bayes, "An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances" (1763).
- |E. T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science (2003).