Sewing-Machine comments on The Importance of Self-Doubt - Less Wrong

23 Post author: multifoliaterose 19 August 2010 10:47PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 20 August 2010 10:55:11PM *  0 points [-]

I'm having trouble parsing your comment. Could you clarify?

A billion is not so big a number. Its reciprocal is not so small a number.

Edit: Specifically, what's "it" in "it being virtually certain." And in the second sentence -- models of what, final probability of what?

Edit 2: -1 now that I understand. +1 on the child, namaste. (+1 on the child, but I just disagree about how big one billion is. So what do we do?)

Comment author: steven0461 20 August 2010 11:05:38PM *  4 points [-]

what's "it" in "it being virtually certain."

"it being virtually certain that there are three independent 1 in 1000 events required, or nine independent 1 in 10 events required, or something along those lines"

models of what, final probability of what?

Models of the world that we use to determine how likely it is that Eliezer will play a critical role through a FAI team. Final probability of that happening.

A billion is big compared to the relative probabilities we're rationally entitled to have between models where a series of very improbable successes is required, and models where only a modest series of modestly improbable successes is required.