Jordan comments on Rationality quotes: April 2010 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: wnoise 01 April 2010 08:41PM

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Comment author: Jordan 02 April 2010 05:09:35AM -1 points [-]

that is sufficient to conclude that your estimate of the probability that it's true should be higher than 1/2^5.

Or it's sufficient to conclude that one's estimate should be less than 1/2^5. Without providing additional evidence (such as "I saw the THHTT outcome") your claim is rather dubious and -- in the realm of humans -- this probably is a good indicator that you are lying or are crazy. I'm not sure how one should update your posteriors.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 April 2010 04:52:25PM 2 points [-]

Suppose I tell you that my password is D!h98+3(dkE4. Do you conclude that since I don't want you to know my password, I must be trying to mislead you as to what my password is, and so the probability that this is my password is actually less than 1/95^12?

If I assert that the outcome as THHTT, either I'm lying or I'm not lying, and there's little evidence either way. What little evidence there is probably doesn't push my probability of telling the truth below 3%, and surely the strength of the evidence has little, if anything, to do with the prior probability of the coin showing THHTT.

Comment author: Jordan 02 April 2010 07:28:59PM 2 points [-]

Do you conclude that since I don't want you to know my password, I must be trying to mislead you as to what my password is, and so the probability that this is my password is actually less than 1/95^12?

Good point. Thanks for batting down my idiocy here, much obliged =D