Exactly. There is an interpretation where the &quot;population&quot; is interpreted as a mathematical ideal process (with potentially infinite information content) and any real, physical manifestation is considered a &quot;sample&quot;.<p>The old-school interpretation is stricter and considers both the &quot;population&quot; and the &quot;sample&quot; to be physical real things. It&#x27;s understandable because these methods were developed for statistics about human <i>populations</i> (note the origin of the terminology), medical studies etc. (The word &quot;statistics&quot; itself derives from &quot;state&quot;).<p>Somehow, frequentist statisticians are usually very conservative and set in one way of thinking and do not even like to entertain an alternative interpretation or paradigm... I&#x27;m not sure why it is so.