PhilGoetz 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: PhilGoetz 10 June 2009 03:54:02PM *  -1 points [-]

Sure. As I noted in the original post and also in response to your comments, sometimes it's fine to do this. Sometimes it isn't.

You are throwing away information when you threshold, period, end of that discussion. If that information was important, you made a mistake. It is easy to identify these situations because they have aberrant expected values in low-probability outcomes. And it is easy to avoid them, unlike with tigers.

Comment author: thomblake 11 June 2009 04:48:50PM 1 point [-]

You are throwing away information when you threshold, period, end of that discussion.

If the 'information' was noise, then it's not information, it's just data. Whether it counts as information depends upon relevance, which is partially what the threshold is for.

Link for more info

Of course, this is a jargon use in information theory. But that seems like the relevant domain.