AIM Framework glossary
Likelihood
Canonical definition
The Likelihood is the conditional probability P(E | H) that the current Evidence E would be observed if Hypothesis H were true, evaluated over each Hypothesis H in the representable Hypothesis Space during a Bayesian Updating cycle. Together with the Prior P(H), the Likelihood determines the Posterior P(H | E) up to normalisation. Within the AIM Framework, two features of the Likelihood are load-bearing. First, the Likelihood is computed only over Hypotheses currently in ; Hypotheses orthogonal to receive no weight regardless of how well they would in fact explain E, which is why S-expansion (endogenously through Imagination, exogenously through AIM Vocabulary Acquisition) is prior to any Likelihood-based correction. Second, Likelihoods are sense-sensitive to the kind of Evidence in play (first-order, coupling-mediated, or introspective); a given Likelihood estimate is only as well-founded as the Evidence-kind it is conditioned on.
Explanation
A Likelihood answers the question “if this particular explanation were true, how expected is what I am now seeing?” It is the engine’s way of testing each candidate explanation against incoming Evidence. Two things about Likelihood matter most in AIM. First, your engine can only score the explanations on its list; explanations that are not on the list cannot be tested, no matter how well they would fit. That is why expanding the list (through Imagination, or by being handed concepts like Mimetic Desire) is architecturally prior to arguing with yourself using the list you already have. Second, the quality of a Likelihood depends on the quality of the Evidence it is conditioned on; a sophisticated Likelihood computation on coupling-mediated social evidence under high-coupling-strength can produce a very confident wrong answer, and the engine cannot tell the difference from inside.
Epistemic status
Inherited (standard Bayesian primitive) with Framework-Specific Integration.
Derivation
Chapter 13, Section 13.2.1; Appendix A, Section A.5.6; Chapter 14, Section 14.4.1; Chapter 14, Section 14.2.2; Chapter 14, Appendix 14A.9.