skepsci comments on You can't believe in Bayes - Less Wrong

4 Post author: PhilGoetz 09 June 2009 06:03PM

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Comment author: skepsci 15 February 2012 03:53:03AM *  1 point [-]

Well, you can. It's just oxymoronic, or at least ironic. Because belief is contrary to the Bayesian paradigm. You use Bayesian methods to choose an action. You have a set of observations, and assign probabilities to possible outcomes, and choose an action.

If you're always using Bayesian methods to choose an action, it doesn't matter what value of P(Bayes' theorem) is set in your skull; it may as well be 1. If Bayes' theorem is built into your very thought processes, if it's false you're fucked.

Comment author: skepsci 15 February 2012 03:59:58AM 0 points [-]

You might be able to get around this by following Bayesian methods to choose an action as long as P(Bayes' theorem)>.5, and then scrapping your entire decision-making algorithm and building a new one from scratch when this stops being true. But how do you decide on a new decision-making algorithm once your old decision-making algorithm has failed you?

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