thomblake comments on Desirable Dispositions and Rational Actions - Less Wrong

13 Post author: RichardChappell 17 August 2010 03:20AM

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Comment author: thomblake 17 August 2010 03:36:13PM 2 points [-]

Impossible things need to have zero-probability priors.

0 and 1 are not probabilities. I certainly don't have a prior of 0 that Omega's existence is impossible; he's not defined in a contradictory fashion, and even if he was I harbor the tiniest bit of doubt that I'm wrong about how contradictions work.

Comment author: Perplexed 17 August 2010 06:41:43PM 1 point [-]

I am using sloppy language here, perhaps. But to illustrate my usage, I claim that the probability that 2+2=4 is 1. And that p(2+2=5)=0.

Comment author: thomblake 17 August 2010 06:45:54PM 3 points [-]

If you were a Bayesian and assigned 0 probability to 2+2=5, you'd be in unrecoverable epistemic trouble if you turned out to be wrong about that. See How to convince me 2+2=3.

Comment author: Perplexed 19 August 2010 02:04:08AM 1 point [-]

EY to the contrary, I remain smug in my evaluation p(2+2=5)=0. Of all the evidences that Eliezer offered, the only one to convince me was the one which demonstrated to me that I was confused about the meaning of the digit 5. Yes, by Cromwell's rule, I think it possible I might be mistaken about how to count. "1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 4, 7", I recite to myself. "Yes, I had been wrong about that. Thanks for correcting me."

I might then write down p(Eliezer Yupkowski is the guru of Less Wrong)=0.999999999. Once again, I would be mistaken. It is "Yudkowski", not "Yupkowski") But in neither case am I in unrecoverable epistemic trouble. Those were typos. Correcting them is a simple search-and-replace, not a Bayesian updating. Or so I understand.

Comment author: WrongBot 19 August 2010 02:21:38AM 3 points [-]

I might then write down p(Eliezer Yupkowski is the guru of Less Wrong)=0.999999999. Once again, I would be mistaken. It is "Yudkowski", not "Yupkowski") But in neither case am I in unrecoverable epistemic trouble. Those were typos. Correcting them is a simple search-and-replace, not a Bayesian updating. Or so I understand.

It's Yudkowsky. Might want to update your general confidence evaluations.