nhamann comments on New Year's Predictions Thread - Less Wrong

18 Post author: MichaelVassar 30 December 2009 09:39PM

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Comment author: nhamann 02 January 2010 05:59:34PM 4 points [-]

The point in you reading the articles is that the inferential distance between you and the rest of the members of this community is so large that communication becomes unwieldy. Like it or not, the members of Less Wrong (like the members of most communities which engage in specialized discourse) chunk specific, technical concepts into single words. When you do not understand the precise meaning of the words as they are being used, there is a disconnect between you and the members of the community.

The specific problem here is in the use of the word "evidence." By evidence, we mean (roughly) "any observation which updates the probability of a hypothesis being true." By probability, we mean Bayesian probability. I'm not going to go through the probability calculation, but other commenters are correct: given the evidence that you are not really, really old, you should revise the probability assigned to your hypothesis of immortality down significantly.

If you are not going to do the requisite reading that would enable you to participate in this discussion community, it would probably be best for both you and everyone here if you just left now. If you do feel like participating, I highly recommend going through the sequences.