GuySrinivasan comments on Reference class of the unclassreferenceable - Less Wrong

25 Post author: taw 08 January 2010 04:13AM

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Comment author: GuySrinivasan 19 January 2010 10:11:39AM *  2 points [-]

Our proposed complicated object here is "cryonics, singularity, superhuman AI etc." and I'm looking for a twist that decomposes it into separate parts with obvious references classes of objects taw finds highly probable. (Maybe. There are other ways to Transform a problem.) How about this: take the set of people who think all of those things are decently likely, then for each person apply the outside view to find out how likely you should consider <a random thing that person thinks is decently likely which most people do not> to be. Or instead of people use journals. Or instead take the set of people who think none of those things are decently likely, apply the outside view to them, and combine. Or instead of "all of those things" use "almost-all of those things".

I wonder what the results of those experiments would be?

(Idea from this discussion on how to solve hard problems)