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

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

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (58)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: loqi 10 June 2009 04:50:05AM 0 points [-]

Well, PhilGoetz is claiming (if I am finally understanding him) that casting things in the light of believe/disbelieve loses information. [...] We can't all be right...

I'm pretty sure both of us are right in this case. I agree that "casting things in the light of" believe/disbelieve can be unacceptably lossy. I was responding to you claiming it's a "weird thing to do" to infer a 55-85 interval based on common uses of the word "believe". Same word, but context seems to derive different concepts. AFAIK, people simply don't tend to use the word in the 55-85 sense when they're talking about "important" things (e.g., you don't often hear things in the tone of, "I believe global warming is a serious problem, let me get back to you on that").

However, I know that when I think to, I use the word "think" instead of "believe" because I think it's clearer, so on some level I must agree that "believe" leaves some sort of ambiguities.

In common usage, "think" and "believe" seem only to differ by degrees. For me, re-reading my above examples under s/believe/think/ seems to weaken the connoted confidence.

Comment author: lavalamp 10 June 2009 04:42:55PM 0 points [-]

I was responding to you claiming it's a "weird thing to do" to infer a 55-85 interval based on common uses of the word "believe".

I thought I must be weird since I seem to have been the only one that completely didn't understand the post initially. But perhaps I just lack this other usage entirely, or perhaps I still don't agree. (See my response to Phil above: http://lesswrong.com/lw/10a/you_cant_believe_in_bayes/ssc)

In common usage, "think" and "believe" seem only to differ by degrees. For me, re-reading my above examples under s/believe/think/ seems to weaken the connoted confidence.

Agree. I don't like to give the impression that I'm more confident than I am.