timtyler comments on Updating, part 1: When can you change your mind? The binary model - Less Wrong

11 Post author: PhilGoetz 13 May 2010 05:55PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (153)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Morendil 14 May 2010 12:17:34PM 1 point [-]

Unlike Jack, I'm pessimistic about your proposal. I've already changed my mind not once but twice.

The interesting aspect is that this doesn't feel like I'm vacillating. I have gone from relying on a vague and unreliable intuition in favor of 1/3 qualified with "it depends", to being moderately certain that 1/2 was unambiguously correct, to having worked out how I was allocating all of the probability mass in the original problem and getting back 1/3 as the answer that I cannot help but think is correct. That, plus the meta-observation that no-one, including people I've asked directly (including yourself), has a rebuttal to my construction of the table, is leaving me with a higher degree of confidence than I previously had in 1/3.

It now feels as if I'm justified to ignore pretty much any argument which is "merely" a verbal appeal to one intuition or the other. Either my formalization corresponds to the problem as verbally stated or it doesn't; either my math is correct or it isn't. "Here I stand, I can no other" - at least until someone shows me my mistake.

Comment author: timtyler 06 June 2010 07:26:37AM 0 points [-]

Congratulations on getting to that point, I figure.