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timtyler comments on Comments for "Rationality" - Less Wrong
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Suppose I have a blind man and a sighted man. The blind man has a cataract that could be repaired with surgery. I tell them that a jar contains a very large number of pebbles, all of them are either green or blue, and there are twice as many of one color than the other. I pull out a random pebble, which turns out to be green, and show it to both the men. I ask them to write down what they think the probability is that the next pebble I pull out will be green. The sighted man writes 51%; the blind man writes 50%. Who is more rational?
The blind man should guess 50%. The sighted man should guess 66%. So, the blind man has made a good guess, given the information he has, while the sighted man has better information, has made a mess of his reasoning, but still has the more accurate figure.
How to quantify rationality? I don't know. Maybe model the methodology used in IQ tests. If you are comparing rationality across individuals, you should probably make sure they have the same access to the test information - or the results are likely to be screwed.