Zed comments on Take heed, for it is a trap - Less Wrong

47 Post author: Zed 14 August 2011 10:23AM

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Comment author: Patrick 14 August 2011 11:50:33AM 4 points [-]

"Bayesian Bob: ... I meant that in a vacuum we should believe it with 50% certainty..."

No we shouldn't: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jp/occams_razor/

As for proving a negative, I've got two words: Modus Tollens.

Bob does need to go back to math class! ;)

Comment author: Zed 14 August 2011 01:11:08PM *  2 points [-]

You're right, I should have said "proving non-existence".

As for the Occam razor (and any formalizations thereof) it's still 50% for an arbitrary proposition P. You need evidence (for instance in terms of the complexity of the proposition itself) in order to lower the probability of the proposition.

Otherwise I can just present you with two propositions P and Q, where Q happens to be non-P and you'll assign the same sub-50% probabilities to P and Q, even though exactly one of them is guaranteed to be true. I think that would make you exploitable.