Vladimir_Nesov comments on A note on the description complexity of physical theories - Less Wrong

19 Post author: cousin_it 09 November 2010 04:25PM

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Comment author: cousin_it 09 November 2010 05:22:23PM *  7 points [-]

then you want to use the simpler one - not because it's more likely to be 'true', but because it allows you to think more clearly.

Congratulations, you have now officially broken with Bayesianism and become a heretic. Your degree of belief in (prior probability of) a hypothesis should not depend on how clearly it allows you to think. Surely you can imagine all manner of ugly scenarios if that were the case.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 09 November 2010 06:54:50PM 5 points [-]

then you want to use the simpler one - not because it's more likely to be 'true', but because it allows you to think more clearly.

Congratulations, you have now officially broken with Bayesianism and become a heretic. Your degree of belief in (prior probability of) a hypothesis should not depend on how clearly it allows you to think. Surely you can imagine all manner of ugly scenarios if that were the case.

Preferring to use a simpler theory doesn't require believing it to be more probable than it is. Expected utility maximization to the rescue.

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