Jack comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: komponisto 07 June 2010 08:37AM

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Comment author: Alexandros 07 June 2010 09:51:42AM *  3 points [-]

Let's get this thread going:

I'd like to ask everyone what probability bump they give to an idea given that some people believe it.

This is based on the fact that out of the humongous idea-space, some ideas are believed by (groups of) humans, and a subset of those are believed by humans and are true. (of course there exist some that are true and not yet believed by humans.)

So, given that some people believe X, what probability do you give for X being true, compared to Y which nobody currently believes?

Comment author: Jack 08 June 2010 01:05:43AM 1 point [-]

I don't think belief has a consistent evidentiary strength since it depends on the testifier's credibility relative to my own. Children have much lower credibility than me on the issue of the existence of Santa. Professors of physics have much higher credibility that me on the issue of dimensions greater than four. Some person other than me has much higher credibility on the issue of how much money they are carrying. But I have more credibility than anyone else on the issue of how much money I'm carrying. I don't see any relation that could be described as baseline so the only answer is: context.