bigjeff5 comments on Bayes' Theorem Illustrated (My Way) - Less Wrong

126 Post author: komponisto 03 June 2010 04:40AM

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

Comments (191)

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

Comment author: bigjeff5 22 December 2013 05:23:58PM *  -2 points [-]

The relevant quote from the Wiki:

The paradox arises because the second assumption is somewhat artificial, and when describing the problem in an actual setting things get a bit sticky. Just how do we know that "at least" one is a boy? One description of the problem states that we look into a window, see only one child and it is a boy. This sounds like the same assumption. However, this one is equivalent to "sampling" the distribution (i.e. removing one child from the urn, ascertaining that it is a boy, then replacing). Let's call the statement "the sample is a boy" proposition "b". Now we have: P(BB|b) = P(b|BB) * P(BB) / P(b) = 1 * 1/4 / 1/2 = 1/2. The difference here is the P(b), which is just the probability of drawing a boy from all possible cases (i.e. without the "at least"), which is clearly 0.5. The Bayesian analysis generalizes easily to the case in which we relax the 50/50 population assumption. If we have no information about the populations then we assume a "flat prior", i.e. P(GG) = P(BB) = P(G.B) = 1/3. In this case the "at least" assumption produces the result P(BB|B) = 1/2, and the sampling assumption produces P(BB|b) = 2/3, a result also derivable from the Rule of Succession.

We have no general population information here. We have one man with at least one boy.

Comment author: EHeller 22 December 2013 05:39:35PM 1 point [-]

I'm not at all sure you understand that quote. Lets stick with the coin flips:

Do you understand why these two questions are different: I tell you- "I flipped two coins, at least one of them came out heads, what is the probability that I flipped two heads?" A:1/3 AND "I flipped two coins, you choose one at random and look at it, its heads.What is the probability I flipped two heads" A: 1/2

Comment author: bigjeff5 22 December 2013 06:11:39PM 0 points [-]

For the record, I'm sure this is frustrating as all getout for you, but this whole argument has really clarified things for me, even though I still think I'm right about which question we are answering.

Many of my arguments in previous posts are wrong (or at least incomplete and a bit naive), and it didn't click until the last post or two.

Like I said, I still think I'm right, but not because my prior analysis was any good. The 1/3 case was a major hole in my reasoning. I'm happily waiting to see if you're going to destroy my latest analysis, but I think it is pretty solid.