cousin_it comments on Open Thread: March 2010 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: AdeleneDawner 01 March 2010 09:25AM

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Comment author: cousin_it 09 March 2010 03:51:33PM 2 points [-]

The odds of a random sentence being true are low, but the odds of the alien choosing to give you a true sentence are higher.

Comment author: thomblake 09 March 2010 08:13:00PM 0 points [-]

A random alien?

Comment author: bogdanb 12 March 2010 01:29:31PM *  0 points [-]

No, just a random alien that (1) I encountered and (2) asked me a question.

The two conditions above restrict enormously the general class of “possible” random aliens. Every condition that restricts possibilities brings information, though I can't see a way of properly encoding this information as a prior about the answer to said question.

[ETA:] Note that I don't necessarily accept cousin_it's assertion, I just state my interpretation of it.