How to deal with probability problems in proper class sample spaces?

156 Views Asked by At

Here my focus is mainly on $Ord$ and questions such as:

  • An ordinal is chosen by random. What is the probability of the event that it is a cardinal number?

  • A coin is tossed proper class many times. What is the probability of an event in which the first $\alpha$ tosses have resulted in tail?

In some sense these questions are similar to the following questions which take place in sample spaces $\mathbb{N}$ and $\{0,1\}^{\mathbb{N}}$ respectively:

  • A natural number is chosen by random. What is the probability of the event that it is a prime number?

  • A coin is tossed (countably) infinite times. What is the probability of an event in which the first $n$ tosses have resulted in tail?

The difficulty is that $Ord$ is a proper class and it is not immediately clear what type of object should the $\sigma$-algebra of events be. It seems formalizing the notion of a probability space for a proper class sample space needs some works and stronger axiomatic systems than ZFC.

Question: How to formalize the notion of probability space for proper class sample spaces? Are there any references for development and use of theory of probability for proper class spaces?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

Under the usual product measure on $2^{ORD}$ (whatever that may mean), the probability that the first $\alpha$ coin tosses be tail is $2^{-|\alpha|}$ which is zero unless $\alpha$ is finite. I cannot make sense of your first question.